Everest had replied it didn't matter at all, and so the question was left.
The valet, Hammond, had greeted Regina respectfully, inwardly delighted that his master had chosen her, and not one of "them other 'aughty and stupid young ladies at the Rectory."
"You must be quite tired with all that tour of inspection," Everest said, as they drew up their chairs to the table, "have some of these hot scones to restore you."
"I shall soon be restored from such a pleasant fatigue as that," she returned, laughing. "The rooms are so beautiful, they are just like lovely pictures, and you have had so many of your own things brought here they look as if we had been living in them for months already."
He had brought many personal things there, and a few of his own pictures, which pleased her more than anything. They were finely finished paintings of tropical scenery, and she spent a long time studying them. Her own picture of "The Enchanted Garden" he could not bear to part with from his bedroom, and it stood by itself on a table, at the foot of the white and silver bed.
A few days after their installation, Everest had to leave her, to go into the country, and after a morning's work on her new picture she spent the afternoon playing the piano.
About four o'clock she rang for tea, and just after it had been brought heard the hall door open and footsteps and voices outside.
She opened the drawing-room door and saw that the footman was interviewing a tiny and extremely dainty feminine young person, dressed in black velvet and a small toque covered with Parma violets.
She had a sheaf of papers in her hands, some keys and a gold pencil, and a velvet bag swung from her grey gloved wrist. A sudden tremor of interest, though she could not tell why, and could only see the back of the intruder, ran through Regina.
"But I must have left it here, because I have already looked on the stairs and everywhere," she heard the girl saying.