She read a great deal, but thought more, looking out of her windows at the world. She usually dressed in gray or dark blue, avoiding black which she said was only for the young. She was more nearly beautiful at seventy-eight than at any other period of her life, though she had always been a woman of great charm. She had been a loved and invaluable wife to the late Sir Robert Gregory, whom the world knew best as ambassador to Italy. She often said that for the connoisseur there were only two countries, England and Italy.
When Robert Gregory died, leaving her a widow of sixty, she was speedily—too speedily some said—sought in marriage by their lifelong friend, Stephen de Lisle. That was eighteen years ago. Refused by her, and perhaps made to feel just a little an old fool, he went abroad in one of his black tempers, and she had not heard one word from him since. It was a great sorrow to her, for both she and her husband had loved him devotedly. The grandchildren, especially Judy and Noel, thought it a delightful romance. They liked having a grandmother who had refused a famous man at sixty and broken his heart. But it was a subject on which she would permit no affectionate comment. It would have meant
