‘O yes, for many years. But it will not be so again. We are going to have the pictures cleaned, and the frames mended, and the old pieces of furniture put in their proper places. It will be very nice then. Did you see those in the east closet?’
‘I have only seen those in the gallery.’
‘I will just show you the way to the others, if you would like to see them?’
They ascended to the room designated the east closet. The paintings here, mostly of smaller size, were in a better condition, owing to the fact that they were hung on an inner wall, and had hence been kept free from damp. Somerset inquired the names and histories of one or two.
‘I really don’t quite know,’ Miss De Stancy replied after some thought. ‘But Paula knows, I am sure. I don’t study them much—I don’t see the use of it.’ She swung her sunshade, so that it fell open, and turned it up till it fell shut. ‘I have never been able to give much attention to ancestors,’ she added, with her eyes on the parasol.
‘These ARE your ancestors?’ he asked, for her position and tone were matters which perplexed him. In spite of the family likeness and other details he could scarcely believe this frank and communicative country maiden to be the modern representative of the De Stancys.
‘O yes, they certainly are,’ she said, laughing. ‘People say I am like them: I don’t know if I am—well, yes, I know I am: I can see that, of course, any day. But they have gone from my family, and perhaps it is just as well that they should have gone.... They are useless,’ she added, with serene conclusiveness.
‘Ah! they have gone, have they?’
‘Yes, castle and furniture went together: it was long ago—long before I was born. It doesn’t seem to me as if the place ever belonged to a relative of mine.’
Somerset corrected his smiling manner to one of solicitude.
‘But you live here, Miss De Stancy?’
‘Yes—a great deal now; though sometimes I go home to sleep.’
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