y; but we knows where
you comes from, and all about you, as one of the old gentlemen was just
a-saying to me. Furnished, Miss? Lord bless you, yes! they're furnished.
It's all furnished, is College. You'll think as the things look a bit
queer; they wasn't made not this year, nor yet last year, I can tell
you; and they ain't in the fashion. But if so be as you don't stand by
fashion, there they is," said Joe, throwing open the door.

The young people went in softly, their excitement subdued into a kind of
awe. An empty house, furnished, is more desolate, more overwhelming to
the imagination, than a house which is bare. For whom was it waiting,
all ready there, swept and garnished? Or were there already unseen
inhabitants about, writing ghostly letters on the tables, seated on the
chairs? Even Janey was hushed.

"I'd rather stay at home, after all," she whispered in Ursula's ear
under her breath.

But after awhile they became familiar with the silent place, and awoke
the echoes in it with their voices and new life. Nothing so young had
been in the College for years. The last chaplain had been an old man and
an old bachelor; and the pensioners were all solitary, living a sort of
monastic life, each in his room, like workers in their cells. When
Janey, surprised by some unexpected joke, burst into one of her peals of
laughter, the old building echoed all through it, and more than one
window was put up and head projected to know the cause of this
profanation.

"Joe!" cried one portentous voice; "what's happened? what's the meaning
of this?"

"It's only them a-laughing, sir," said Joe, delighting in the vagueness
of his rejoinder. "They ain't used to it, that's the truth; but laugh
away, Miss, it'll do you good," he added benignly. Joe was of a cheerful
spirit, notwithstanding his infirmities, and he foresaw lightsome days.

Somewhat taken aback, however, by the commotion produced by Janey's
laugh, the young party left the College, Ursula carrying with her sundry
memoranda and measurements for curtains and carpets. "You must have
curtains," she said, "and I think a carpet for the study. The other room
will do; but the study is cold, it has not the sunshine. I wonder if we
might go and look at some, all at once."

Here the three paused in the road, and looked at each other somewhat
overcome by the grandeur of the idea. Even Reginald, notwithstanding his
Oxford experience, held his breath a little at the thought of goin