Rose of the World by Egerton Castle — Read

The manor-house was very old and very solid. It held nothing of any high value, perhaps, but it held nothing cheap or weak. It was complete before the days of machine-made furniture and of so-called aesthetic art, and those that had ruled over it since had been withheld by innate taste or a happy lack of means from adding to it either within or without. Thus it had remained at a standstill through an extraordinary lapse of years, and all was now beautifully, frankly old; it stood in its simplicity, perfect in antique shabbiness. Only without, the creepers flung ever new shoots about the sturdy strength of the stones. Only within, it was haunted by a memory, by a presence; and this presence was young even to boyhood. And the young ghost harmonised with the aged house, seemed to belong to it as surely as -- year by year -- the spirit of spring to the ancient garden.

Rosamond, whose life purpose had so long been to avoid the haunting of the past, awoke in the dawn of her first day at Saltwoods to find herself in a very habitation of memories; nay, more, to feel, in some inexplicable manner, that the dead were more alive in this house than the quick, and yet -- strange mystery of the heart -- that she was glad of it. She watched the dawn wax as on one memorable morning in her far-off Indian palace; not here on beetle's-wing green and eastern glow of carmine and purple, but upon brown of wainscot oak and dim rosebud of faded chintz. And, as the lights spread between the gaps of the shutters, there grew upon her from the panelled wall a strong young face with bold wide-open eyes -- eyes very young, set under brows already thoughtful. A very English face, despite the olive of the cheek, the darkness of the hair, close-cut, that still had a crisp wave under the cock of the Sandhurst cap.