The old house was as beautiful as the garden to which it belonged.  It had been built, a great part of it, centuries ago, and had, like many other houses of its date, been added to from time to time.  Queerly shaped rooms jutted out in many quarters; odd stairs climbed up in several directions; towers and turrets were added to the roof; passages, some narrow, some broad, connected the new buildings with the old.  The whole made an incongruous and yet beautiful effect, the new rooms possessing the advantages and comforts which modern builders put into their houses, and the older part of the house the quaint devices and thick, wainscoted walls and deep, mullioned windows of the times which are gone by.

Iris ran quickly through the wide entrance hall and up the broad, white, stone stairs.  These stairs were a special feature of Delaney Manor.  They had been brought all the way from Italy by a Delaney nearly a hundred years ago, and were made of pure marble, and were very lovely to look at.  When Iris reached the first landing, she turned aside from the spacious modern apartments and, opening a green baize door, ran down a narrow passage.  At the end of the passage she turned to the left and went down another passage, and then wended her way up some narrow stairs, which curled round and round as if they were going up a tower.  This, as a matter of fact, was the case.  Presently Iris pushed aside a curtain, and found herself in an octagon room nearly at the top of a somewhat high, but squarely built, tower.  This room, which was large and airy, was wainscoted with oak; there was a thick Turkey carpet on the floor, and the many windows were flung wide open, so that the summer breeze, coming in fresh and sweet from this great height, made the whole lovely room as fresh and cheery and full of sweet perfume as if its solitary inmate were really in the open air.

Iris, however, had often been in the room before, and had no time or thought now to give to its appearance.  Her eyes darted to the sofa on which her young mother lay.  Mrs. Delaney was half-sitting up, and looked almost too young to be the mother of a child as big as Iris.  She had one of the most beautiful faces God ever gave to anybody.  It was not so much that her features were perfect, but they were full of light, full of soul, and such a very loving expression beamed in her eyes that no man, woman, or child ever looked at her without feeling the best in their natures coming immediately to the surface.

As to little Iris, her feelings for her mother were quite beyond any words to express.  She ran up to her now and knelt by her side.

“Kiss me, Iris,” said Mrs. Delaney.

Iris put up her soft, rosebud lips; they met the equally soft lips of the mother.

“You are much better, mummy; are you not?” said the child, in an eager, half-passionate whisper.

“I have had a long sleep, darling, and I am rested,” said Mrs. Delaney.  “I told Fortune to call you.  Father is away for the day.  I thought we could have half an hour uninterrupted.”