Indeed, shy as she was, his entrance tempted Jenny to rise from her
chair.

"Come, leave me look at 'ee," said Granfa, placing his hands on her
shoulders.

"Keep quiet, uncle," said Mrs. Trewhella. "You'll make her fire up."

"Ah, nonsense," contradicted the old man. "That's nothing. I do dearly
love to see maids' cheeks in a blush. Wish you well, my lovely," he
added, clasping Jenny's hands. "I'm terrible hurried I wasn't here to
give 'ee a welcome by the door."

Jenny liked this old man, who for the exile from a distant country by
his age and dignity and sweetness conjured a few tears of home. The
supper, a late meal for such a household, went its course at a fair
speed; for they were all anxious to be off to bed with the prospect of
work in the windy November dawn. Very soon they all vanished through the
out-house door, and Granfa, with lighted candle, a hot brick wrapped in
flannel under his arm, twinkled slowly up to bed through the hollow
staircase. The rest of them were left alone in a silence. It was ten
o'clock, and the fire was already paling behind the fluted bars of the
slab.

"Well, I suppose you're thinking of bed?" suggested Mrs. Trewhella.

May looked anxiously at her sister.

"Yes, I suppose we are," Jenny agreed.

Zachary began to whistle a Sankey hymn tune.

"You'll be wishing to unpack your things first," continued Mrs.
Trewhella.

"Yes, I ought to unpack," Jenny said in a frozen voice.

"I've put May in the bedroom next to you. Come, I'll show 'ee."

Zachary still sat whistling his hymn tune. A bird shielded from view by
the window-curtain stirred in his cage. Mrs. Trewhella lighted three
candles. Cloaks were picked up and flung over arms, and in single file
the three figures, each with her winking guide, vanished up the
staircase.

"What a long passage," whispered Jenny when they stood in a bunch at the
top.

Mrs. Trewhella led the way to the bride's chamber.

"You're here, where the wives of the Trewhellas have slept some long
time."

After the low room downstairs the bedroom seemed enormous. The ceiling
in Gothic irregularities of outline slanted up and up to cobwebs and
shadows. It was a great barn of a room. A tall four-post bed, hung with
faded tapestries of Love and War, was set off by oak chests-of-drawers
and Court cupboards. The floor was uneven, strangely out of keeping with
the rose-infested Brussels carpet so vividly new. Most of the windows,
latticed and small, w