Then they drove through some white gates. A lodge and a long, shady lane were before them, with long, parklike meadows on one side. It was all so sweet, so still, and peaceful, in the evening light, that Waveney was half sorry to find that their journey was at an end; for the next moment the carriage stopped, and the lodge-keeper opened some more gates, curtsying with a look of pleasure when she saw Miss Harford.
"I have not come home to stay, Mrs. Monkton," observed Miss Harford, with a friendly nod, and then the horses began frisking down a winding carriage drive. The shrubbery was thick, but every now and then Waveney had glimpses of little shut-in lawns, one with a glorious cedar in the middle, and another with a sundial and peacock. An old red brick Elizabethan house was at the end of the drive, with a long sunny terrace round it.
At the sound of the wheels two little Yorkshire terriers flew out to greet their mistress with shrill barks of joy.
"Oh, what pretty little fellows!" exclaimed Waveney.
"Yes, they are great pets. Fuss and Fury, that is what we call them," returned Miss Harford, smiling, "and I think you will allow that the names suit them."
CHAPTER VI.
QUEEN ELIZABETH'S WRAITH.
"... Life indeed must always be a compromise between common sense and the ideal,—the one abating nothing of its demands, the other accommodating itself to what is practicable and real."—Amiel.