The advertisement appeared.  They waited for three days afterward, and nothing came of it.  No change of importance occurred, during the same period, in the condition of the suffering woman.  Mr. Camp looked in, toward evening, and said, “We have done our best.  There is no help for it but to wait.”

Far away in Perthshire that third evening was marked as a joyful occasion at Windygates House.  Blanche had consented at last to listen to Arnold’s entreaties, and had sanctioned the writing of a letter to London to order her wedding-dress.

SIXTH SCENE.—­SWANHAVEN LODGE.

CHAPTER THE THIRTY-FIRST

SEEDS OF THE FUTURE (FIRST SOWING).

“NOT SO large as Windygates.  But—­shall we say snug, Jones?”

“And comfortable, Smith.  I quite agree with you.”

Such was the judgment pronounced by the two choral gentlemen on Julius Delamayn’s house in Scotland.  It was, as usual with Smith and Jones, a sound judgment—­as far as it went.  Swanhaven Lodge was not half the size of Windygates; but it had been inhabited for two centuries when the foundations of Windygates were first laid—­and it possessed the advantages, without inheriting the drawbacks, of its age.  There is in an old house a friendly adaptation to the human character, as there is in an old hat a friendly adaptation to the human head.  The visitor who left Swanhaven quitted it with something like a sense of leaving home.  Among the few houses not our own which take a strong hold on our sympathies this was one.  The ornamental grounds were far inferior in size and splendor to the grounds at Windygates.  But the park was beautiful—­less carefully laid out, but also less monotonous than an English park.  The lake on the northern boundary of the estate, famous for its breed of swans, was one of the curiosities of the neighborhood; and the house had a history, associating it with more than one celebrated Scottish name, which had been written and illustrated by Julius Delamayn.  Visitors to Swanhaven Lodge were invariably presented with a copy of the volume (privately printed).  One in twenty read it.  The rest were “charmed,” and looked at the pictures.

The day was the last day of August, and the occasion was the garden-party given by Mr. and Mrs. Delamayn.

Smith and Jones—­following, with the other guests at Windygates, in Lady Lundie’s train—­exchanged their opinions on the merits of the house, standing on a terrace at the back, near a flight of steps which led down into the garden.  They formed the van-guard of the visitors, appearing by twos and threes from the reception rooms, and all bent on going to see the swans before the amusements of the day began.  Julius Delamayn came out with the first detachment, recruited Smith and Jones, and other wandering bachelors, by the way, and set forth for the lake.  An interval