One afternoon—­it is about a week later than that soiree at Walpole Lodge, mentioned in a previous chapter—­Mrs. Miller and her eldest daughter are sitting together in the large drawing-room at Shadonake.  The room is furnished in that style of high artistic decoration that is now the fashion.  There are rich Persian rugs over the polished oak floor; a high oak chimney-piece, with blue tiles inserted into it in every direction, and decorated with old Nankin china bowls and jars; a wide grate below, where logs of wood are blazing between brass bars; quantities of spindle-legged Chippendale furniture all over the room, and a profusion of rich gold embroidery and “textile fabrics” of all descriptions lighting up the carved oak “dado” and the sombre sage green of the walls.  There are pictures, too, quite of the best, and china of every period and every style, upon every available bracket and shelf and corner where a cup or a plate can be made to stand.  Four large windows on one side open on to the lawn; two, at right angles to them, lead into a large conservatory, where there is, even at this dead season of the year, a blaze of exotic blossoms that fill the room with their sweet rich odour.

Mrs. Miller sits before a writing bureau of inlaid satin-wood of an ancient pattern.  She has her pen in her hand, and is docketing her visiting list.  Beatrice Miller sits on a low four-legged stool by her mother’s side, with a large Japanese china bowl on her knees filled with cards, which she takes out one after the other, reading the names upon them aloud to her mother before tossing them into a basket, also of Japanese structure, which is on the floor in front of her.

Beatrice is Mrs. Miller’s eldest daughter, and she is twenty.  Guy is only eleven months older, and Edwin is a year younger—­they are both at Oxford; next comes Geraldine, who is still in the school-room, but who is hoping to come out next Easter; then Ernest and Charley, the Eton boys; and lastly, Teddy and Ralph, who are at a famous preparatory school, whence they hope, in process of time, to be drafted on to Eton, following in the footsteps of their elder brothers.

Of all this large family it is Beatrice, the eldest daughter, who causes her mother the most anxiety.  Beatrice is like her mother—­a plain but clever-looking girl, with the dark swart features and colouring of the Esterworths, who are not a handsome race.  Added to which, she inherits her father’s short and somewhat stumpy figure.  Such a personal appearance in itself is enough to cause uneasiness to any mother who is anxious for her daughter’s future; but when these advantages of looks are rendered still more peculiar by the fact that her hair had to be shaved off some years ago when she had scarlet fever, and that it has never grown again properly, but is worn short and loose about her face like a boy’s, with its black tresses tumbling into her eyes every time she looks down—­and when, added to this, Mrs. Miller also discovered to her mortification that Beatrice possessed a will of her own, and so decided a method of expressing her opinions and convictions, that she was not likely to be easily moulded to her own views, you will, perhaps, understand the extent of the difficulties with which she has to deal.