In the drawing-room they settled down before the fire very contentedly silent.  Pamela idly reached out for a book and read a little here and there as she sipped her coffee, while her hostess looked into the fire.  The room seemed to dream in the spring sunshine.  Generations of Hopes had lived in it, and each mistress had set her mark on the room.  Beautiful old cabinets stood against the white walls, while beaded ottomans worked in the early days of Victoria jostled slender Chippendale chairs and tables.  A large comfortable Chesterfield and down-cushioned arm-chairs gave the comfort moderns ask for.  Nothing looked out of place, for the room with its gracious proportions took all the incongruities—­the family Raeburns, the Queen Anne cabinets, the miniatures, the Victorian atrocities, the weak water-colour sketches, the framed photographs of whiskered gentlemen and ladies with bustles, and made them into one pleasing whole.  There is no charm in a room furnished from showrooms, though it be correct in every detail to the period chosen.  Much more human is the room that is full of things, ugly, perhaps, in themselves but which link one generation to another.  The ottoman worked so laboriously by a ringleted great-aunt stood with its ugly mahogany legs beside a Queen Anne chair, over whose faded wool-work seat a far-off beauty had pricked her dainty fingers—­and both of the workers were Hopes:  while by Pamela’s side stood a fire-screen stitched by Augusta, the last of the Hopes.  “I wonder,” said Mrs. Hope, breaking the silence, “what has become of Lewis Elliot?  I haven’t heard from him since he went away.  Do you know where he is just now?”

Pamela shook her head.

“Why don’t you marry him, Pamela?”

“For a very good reason—­he hasn’t asked me.”

“Hoots!” said Mrs. Hope, “as if that mattered!”

Pamela lifted her eyebrows.  “It is generally considered rather necessary, isn’t it?” she asked mildly.

“You know quite well that he would ask you to-morrow if you gave him the slightest encouragement The man’s afraid of you, that’s what’s wrong.”

Pamela nodded.

“Is that why you have remained Pamela Reston?  My dear, men are fools, and blind.  And Lewis is modest as well.  But ...forgive me blundering.  I’ve a long tongue, but you would think at my age I might keep it still.”

“No, I don’t mind your knowing.  I don’t think anyone else ever had a suspicion of it.  And I thought myself I had long since got over it.  Indeed when I came here I was contemplating marrying someone else.”

“Tell me, did you know Lewis was here when you came to Priorsford?”

“No—­I’d completely lost trace of him.  I was too proud ever to inquire after him when he suddenly gave up coming near us.  Priorsford suggested itself to me as a place to come to for a rest, chiefly, I suppose, because I had heard of it from Lewis, but I had no thought of seeing him.  Indeed, I had no notion that he had still a connection with the place.  And then Jean suddenly said his name.  I knew then I hadn’t forgotten; my heart leapt up in the old unreasonable way.  I met him—­and thought he cared for Jean.”