A Bit of Rough Road by Amy Le Feuvre

IT was an exquisite summer afternoon. Brunsworthy Hall lay bathed in the still golden sunshine. It was a substantial old brown stone building, with creeper-clad walls. In front of the principal entrance was a sloping green lawn, a group of beech-trees at the farther end cast some welcome shade upon it; old-fashioned flowering beds bordered the lawn on one side, the other was flanked by a rhododendron shrubbery. In the distance, between a broken line of pines and larches, stretched a wide heather and bracken-covered moor. Further still, blue hills bordered the horizon, and this was the scene that Hope, shading her eyes with her hand, looked out upon, as she stood at the open door. Behind her was a cool, fragrant, oak-wainscoted hall. Roses in bowls seemed to predominate over everything else.

Hope, in her white dress, looked singularly sweet and girlish. But she had gained in grace and dignity during these last few months as mistress of Brunsworthy Hall. For three months she had divided her time between managing her husband's property, and nursing him back to convalescence.