Chapter Two.
Roy’s Mother and Tutor.
“I had missed you, Roy,” said the lady, smiling proudly on the boy; and he looked with eyes full of pride at the beautiful woman, who now rested her arm upon his shoulder and walked by his side into the more homelike part of the old fortalice, whose grim interior had been transformed by wainscoting, hangings, carpets, stained glass, and massive oak furniture into the handsome mansion of the middle of the seventeenth century.
They passed down a broad staircase into a noble hall, and from thence into a library whose broad, low, mullioned stone window opened into what had been the inner court of the castle, whose ramparts and flanking corner towers were still there; but the echoing stones that had once paved it had given place to verdant lawn, trim flower-beds ablaze with bloom, quaintly-cut shrubs, and creepers which beautified the walls once so bare and grim.
“I want to talk to you, Roy,” said Lady Royland, sinking into a great formal chair. “Bring your stool and sit down.”
“Got too big for the stool, mother,” said the boy; “I can’t double up my legs close enough. I’ll sit here.”
He threw himself upon the thick carpet at her feet, and rested his arms upon her lap.
“Want to talk to me? I’d rather hear you read.”