'But what if your fears are not realised?' she said, quietly.
'Why, then,' said Gran, less fluently, 'then I—oh, of course, I shall be delighted beyond words; no one will be more delighted than I.'
'Then you shall see,' said Lady Bligh, rising, with a sweet and hopeful smile, 'that is how it is going to turn out; I have a presentiment that it will all turn out for the best. So there is only one thing to be done—we must prepare to welcome her to our hearts!'
Granville shrugged his shoulders, but his mother did not see him; she had gone quietly from the room and was already climbing (slowly, for she was stout) the stairs that led up to her own snuggery on the first floor. This little room was less of a boudoir than a study, and more like an office than either, for it was really a rather bare little room. Its most substantial piece of furniture was a large unlovely office-table, and its one picture was framed in the window-sashes—a changeful picture of sky and trees, and lawn and river, painted this morning in the most radiant tints of early summer. At the office-table, which was littered with letters and
