the handkerchief.
"And me a poor widow!"

The old lady's face went very grave, and all the cheeriness passed out
of it.

"Faith, you are not the only widow in the chamber," she said gently.
"Temperance, my dear, she is weary, maybe."

"She hasn't got a bit of call," rejoined Temperance. "Sat all day long
in my Lord Dilston's smart caroche, lolling back in the corner, just
like a feather-bed. Mistress Joyce, 'tis half ill-temper and half
folly--that's what it is."

"Well, well, my dear, we need not judge our neighbours.--Edith, my
child, thou knowest the house as well as I; wilt thou carry thy friends
above? Rebecca hath made ready My Lady's Chamber for my Lady,"--with a
smile at her old friend--"and the Fetterlock Chamber for Faith and
Temperance. The Old Wardrobe is for thee and Lettice, and the lads
shall lie in the Nursery."

Names to every room, after this fashion, were customary in old houses.
The party were to stay at Minster Lovel for four days, from Friday to
Tuesday, and then to pursue their journey to London.

In the Old Wardrobe, a pleasant bedchamber on the upper floor, Lettice
washed off the dust of the journey, and changed her clothes when the
little trunk came up which held the necessaries for the night. Then she
tried to find her way to the Credence Chamber, and--as was not very
surprising--lost it, coming out into a long picture-gallery where she
was at once struck and entranced by a picture that hung there. It
represented a young girl about her own age, laid on a white couch, and
dressed in white, but with such a face as she had never seen on any
woman in this life. It was as white as the garments, with large dark
eyes, wherein it seemed to Lettice as if her very soul had been melted;
a soul that had gone down into some dreadful deep, and having come up
safe, was ever afterwards anxiously ready to help other souls out of
trouble. She would have thought the painter meant it for an angel, but
that angels are not wont to be invalids and lie on couches. Beside this
picture hung another, which reminded her of her Grandfather Louvaine;
but this was of a young man, not much older than Aubrey, yet it had her
grandfather's eyes, which she had seen in none else save her Aunt Edith.
Now Lettice began to wonder where she was, and how she should find her
way; and hearing footsteps, she waited till they came up, when she saw
old Rebecca.

"Why, my dear heart, what do you here?" said she kindly.