indeed from the first hour of her return. Nature, even in the household and the affections, abhors a vacuum, and as soon as Eleanor married, she began to efface her place in Burley House, and order it to new ways and new hopes. Jonathan had got used to his solitary dinner, and his quiet hour with his pipe. There were very few hours in which he really regretted the company, and the dressing, dining, and merry-making which had been naturally enough a part of Eleanor's reign there.
Also, he had begun to picture to himself another woman in her place as mistress. Into all his fair, large rooms he had brought Sarah, in imagination. Her quiet movements, her calm, sweet face, her soft, homely speech, had become a part of all his dreams and hopes for the future. Do as he would, Eleanor appeared to him somewhat in the light of a guest. She had given up her place, and he could not put her in it again. Aske's wife was not altogether the same thing as his very own daughter. He would have been puzzled to define the difference; he would, very likely, have denied it, but there it was.
And Eleanor, in the same vague, indeter-
