Julia herself was sitting before the fire now, one slippered foot to the blaze.  Four years in London life had left her as lovely as ever; perhaps there was even an increase of beauty in the lines of her closed lips, a certain accentuation of the old spiritual sweetness in her look.  Her bright hair was still wound about her head in loose braids, and her severely simple gown of Quaker gray was relieved at the wrists and throat by transparent frills of white.  In her arms lay a baby less than a year old, a splendid boy, whose eyes, through half-closed lids, were lazily studying the fire.  His little smocked white frock showed sturdy bare knees, and the fine web of his yellow hair blew like a gold mist against his mother’s breast.

The room’s only other occupant, a tall, handsome woman, in a tan cloth suit, with rich furs, presently turned from the deep curtained arch of a window.  This was Barbara Fox, Lady Curriel now, still thin, and still with a hint of sharpness and fatigue in her browned face, yet with rare content and satisfaction written there, too.  Barbara’s life was full, and every hour brought its demand on her time, but she was a very happy woman, devoted to her husband and her three small sons, and idolizing her baby daughter.  Her winters were devoted to the social and political interests that played so large a part in her husband’s life and her own, but Julia knew that she was far more happy in the summers, when her brood ran wild over the old manor house at High Darmley, and every cottager stopped to salute the donkey cart and the shouting heirs of “the big family.”

“Not a sign of them!” said Barbara now, coming from the window to the fire, and loosening her furs as she sat down opposite Julia.  “Is he asleep?” she added in a cautious undertone.

“Not he!” answered Julia, with a kiss for her son.  “He’s just lying here and finking ’bout fings!  I don’t know where the others can be,” she went on, in evident reference to Barbara’s vigil at the window.  “Jim said lunch, and it’s nearly one o’clock now!  Take your things off, Babbie, and lunch with us?”

“Positively I mustn’t, dear.  I must be at home.  I’ve to see the paperers at two o’clock, and to-morrow morning early, you know, we go back to the kiddies at the seaside.”

“And they’re all well?”

“Oh, splendid.  Even Mary’s out of doors all day, and digging in the sand!  We think Jim’s right about Geordie’s throat, by the way; it ought to be done, I suppose, but it doesn’t seem to trouble him at all, and it can wait!  Julie dear, why don’t you and the boy and Anna come down, if only for four or five days?  Bring nurse, and some old cottons, and a parasol, and we’ll have a lovely, comfy time!”

“But we’re just home!” Julia protested laughingly.  “I’ve hardly got straightened out yet!  However, I’ll speak to Jim,” she went on.  “This gentleman thinks he would like it, and Anna is frantic to see the boys.”