The walls were covered with oil paintings and good ones,
as she could see at a glance, whilst at the further end, where narrow
shelves were fixed from the floor to the ceiling, was displayed the
famous dinner service of Sèvres, for which the Baroness was said to
have bartered the two thousand lease of her house. Harriet glanced from the pictures and the china upon the walls to
the steak and bread and cheese upon the table, and marvelled at the
incongruity of the whole establishment. Madame Gobelli who, whilst at
the Lion d’Or, had appeared to think nothing good enough for her, was
now devouring fried steak and onions, as if they had been the daintiest
of fare. But the champagne made amends, on that night at least, for the
solids which accompanied it, and the girl was quite ready to believe
that the poverty of the table was only due to the fact that they had
arrived at the Red House unexpectedly. As they reached the upper
corridor, her host and hostess parted with her, with much effusion,
and passing into their own room, shut the door and locked it noisily. As Harriet gained hers, she saw the door opposite partly unclose to
display poor Bobby standing there to see her once again. He was clothed only in his long night-shirt, and looked like a lanky
ghost, but he was too childish in mind to think for one moment that his
garb was not a suitable one for a lover to accost his mistress in. She
heard him whisper her name as she turned the handle of her own door. “Why, Bobby,” she exclaimed, “not in bed yet?”

“Hush! hush!” he said in a low voice, “or Mamma will hear you! I
couldn’t sleep till I had seen you again and wished you good-night!”

“Poor dear boy! Are you not very hungry?”

“No, thanks. Miss Wynward is very kind to me. She has seen after that. But to leave without a word to you. That was the hard part of it!”

“Poor Bobby!” ejaculated Harriet again, drawing nearer to him. “But you
must not stay out of bed. You will catch your death of cold!”

“Kiss me then and I will go!”

He advanced his face to the opening of the door, and she put her lips
to his, and drew his breath away with her own. “Good-night! good-night!” murmured Bobby with a long sigh. “God bless
you! good-night!” and then he disappeared, and Harriet entered her own
room, and her eyes gleamed, as she recognised the fact that Bobby also
was going to make a fool of himself for her sake. The next morning she was surprised on going downstairs at about nine
o’clock, to find a cloth laid over only part of the dining table, and
breakfast evidently prepared for one person. She was still gazing at it
in astonishment, and wondering what it meant, when Miss Wynward entered
the room, to express a hope that Miss Brandt had slept well and had
everything that she required. “O! certainly yes! but where are we going to have breakfast?”

“Here, Miss Brandt, if it pleases you. I was just about to ask what you
would like for your breakfast.”

“But the Baron and Baroness--”

“O! they started for the manufactory two hours ago. Her ladyship is a
very early riser when at home, and they have some four miles to drive.”

“The manufactory!” echoed Harriet, “do you mean where they make the
boots and shoes?”

“Yes! There is a manufactory in Germany, and another in England, where
the boots and shoes are finished off. And then there is the shop in
Oxford Street, where they are sold. The Baron’s business is a very
extensive one!”

“So I have understood, but what good can Madame Gobelli do there? What
can a woman know about such things?”

Miss Wynward shrugged her shoulders. “She looks after the young women who are employed, I believe, and keeps
them up to their work. The Baroness is a very clever woman. She knows
something about most things--and a good deal that were better left
unknown,” she added, with a sigh. “And does she go there every morning?”

“Not always, but as a rule she does. She likes to have a finger in the
pie, and fancies that nothing can go on properly without her. And she
is right so far that she has a much better head for business than the
Baron, who would like to be out of it all if he could!”

“But why can’t he give it up then, since they are so very rich?”
demanded Harriet. Miss Wynward regarded her for a moment, as if she wondered who had
given her the information, and then said quietly,

“But all this time we are forgetting your breakfast, Miss Brandt! What
will you take? An egg, or a piece of bacon?”

“O! I don’t care,” replied Harriet, yawning, “I never can eat when I am
alone! Where is Bobby? Won’t he take his breakfast with me?”

“O! he had his long ago with his Mamma, but I daresay he would not mind
a second edition, poor boy!”

She walked to the French windows which opened from a rustic porch to
the lawn, and called “Bobby! Bobby!”

“Yes, Miss Wynward,” replied the lad in a more cheerful tone than
Harriet remembered to have ever heard him use before, “what is it?”

“Come in, my dear, and keep Miss Brandt company, whilst she takes her
breakfast!”

“Won’t I!” cried Bobby, as he came running from the further end of the
disorderly garden, with a bunch of flowers. “They are for you!” he exclaimed, as he put them into Harriet’s hand,
“I gathered them on purpose!”

“Thank you, Bobby,” she replied. “It _was_ kind of you!”

She felt cheered by the simple attention. For her hostess to have
left her on the very first morning, without a word of explanation,
had struck her as looking very much (notwithstanding all the effusive
flattery and protestations of attachment with which she had been laden)
as if she were not wanted at the Red House. But when her morning meal was over, and she had been introduced to
every part of the establishment under the chaperonage of Bobby--to the
tangled, overgrown garden, the empty stables, Papa’s library, which
was filled with French and German books, and Mamma’s drawing-room,
which was so full of valuable china that one scarcely dared move freely
about it--the burning thirst to see, or hear something of Ralph Pullen
returned with full force upon Harriet, and she enquired eagerly of Miss
Wynward when her hostess might be expected to return. Miss Wynward looked rather blank as she replied,

“Not till dinner time, I am afraid! I fancy she will find too much to
enquire about and to do, after so long an absence from home. I am so
sorry, Miss Brandt,” she continued, noting the look of disappointment
on the girl’s face, “that her ladyship did not make this plain to you
last night. Her injunctions to me were to see that you had everything
you required, and to spare no trouble or expense on your account. But
that is not like having her here, of course! Have you been into the
library? There are some nice English works there, and there is a piano
in the drawing-room which you might like to use.