It was not the first time she had put off her black, for, in the Paris heat, it had become intolerable, and she had certainly enjoyed her visit to an inexpensive but excellent dressmaker, who had produced this grey gown with all its determined simplicity.

Rose looked round at the drawing-room now.  The furniture in holland covers was stacked in the middle of the room; the pictures were wrapped in brown paper with large and rather unnecessary white labels printed with “Glass” in red letters.  The fire-irons were dressed in something that looked like Jaeger and the tassels of the blinds hung in yellow cambric bags.  Rose smiled a little as she recalled how strange and strong an impression a room in such a state had made on her in her childhood.  The drawing-room in her London home had seemed incomparably more attractive then than at any other time.  Lady Charlton had once brought Rose up to see a dentist on a bright, autumn day.  She had not been much hurt, but it was a great comfort when the visit was over.  She and her mother had dinner on two large mutton chops, and some apricot tartlets from a pastry-cook, things ordered by Lady Charlton with a view to giving as little trouble as possible to two able-bodied women who were living on board wages, and both of whom were, in private life, excellent cooks.  Lady Charlton was anxious, too, not to give trouble by sending messages, having quite forgotten that there was also a boy who lived in the house.  So, after lunch, she had gone out to find a cab for herself, and had left Rose to rest with a book on the big morocco sofa in the dining-room.

Rose had found her way to the drawing-room, and she could see now the half-open shutter and the rich light of the autumn sun turning all the dust of the air to gold in one big shaft of light.  The child had never seen the house when the family was away before, and with awestruck, mysterious joy, she had lifted corners of covers and peered under chairs and recognised legs of tables and footstools.  Then she had stood up and taken a comprehensive view of the whole of this world of mountains and valleys, precipices and familiar little home corners, all covered in brown holland, like sand instead of grass, all golden lights and soft shadows.

What had there been so very exciting in it—­an excitement she could still recall as keenly now?  Was it the greatness of the revolution, or surprise at the new order of things?  It was such a startling interruption of all the usual relations between the furniture of the house and its human beings.  A great London house wrapped up in the old way spoke more of the old order its influence, its importance, than did the house when inhabited, and out of its curl papers.  Nothing could speak more of law and order and care, and the “proper” condition of things, and the self-respect of housemaids, the passing effectiveness of sweeps, and the unobtrusive attentiveness of carpenters!  But to the child there had been a glorious sense of loneliness and licence as she danced up and down the broad vacant spaces and jumped over the rolls of Turkey carpets.