that crowned her head, which was unburdened with cap or covering of any kind.  Her eyebrows were dyed to match her hair.  Her cheeks, even through the powder with which they were thickly smeared, showed two spots of brilliant red, which no one less ignorant than I would have accepted without question as the last genuine remains of the bloom of youth.  But at that first interview I accepted everything au pied de la lettre, without doubt or question of any kind.

Her ladyship wore long earrings of filigree gold.  Round her neck was a massive gold chain.  On her fingers sparkled several rings of price—­diamonds, rubies and opals.  In figure her ladyship was tall, and upright as a dart.  She was, however, slightly lame of one foot, which necessitated the use of a cane when walking.  Lady Chillington’s cane was ivory-headed, and had a gold plate let into it, on which was engraved her crest and initials.  She was seated in an elaborately-carved high-backed chair, near a table on which were the remains of a dessert for one person.

The Green Saloon was a large gloomy room; at least it looked gloomy as I saw it for the first time, lighted up by four wax candles where twenty were needed.  These four candles being placed close by where Lady Chillington was sitting, left the other end of the saloon in comparative darkness.  The furniture was heavy, formal and old-fashioned.  Gloomy portraits of dead and gone Chillingtons lined the green walls, and this might be the reason why there always seemed to me a slight graveyard flavour—­scarcely perceptible, but none the less surely there—­about this room which caused me to shudder involuntarily whenever I crossed its threshold.

Lady Chillington’s black eyes—­large, cold and steady as Juno’s own—­had been bent upon me all this time, measuring me from head to foot with what I felt to be a slightly contemptuous scrutiny.

“What is your name, and how old are you?” she asked, with startling abruptness, after a minute or two of silence.

“Janet Hope, and twelve years,” I answered, laconically.  A feeling of defiance, of dislike to this bedizened old woman began to gnaw my child’s heart.  Young as I was, I had learned, with what bitterness I alone could have told, the art of wrapping myself round with a husk of cold reserve, which no one uninitiated in the ways of children could penetrate, unless I were inclined to let them.  Sulkiness was the generic name for this quality at school, but I dignified it with a different term.

“How many years were you at Park Hill Seminary? and where did you live before you went there?” asked Lady Chillington.

“I have lived at Park Hill ever since I can remember anything.  I don’t know where I lived before that time.”

“Are your parents alive or dead?  If the latter, what do you remember of them?”

A lump came into my throat, and tears into my eyes.  For a moment or two I could not answer.