's fancy imagined rows of faces looking in.

Inside a little papering and whitewashing had been done, but certainly
the place looked remarkably unviting. A narrow passage ran from front
to back, on one side of which was the living room with the two windows,
while on the other were the kitchen and scullery. Upstairs there were two
good-sized bedrooms with a small third room in a lean-to at the back, the
lower part of which was occupied by a wash-house. Through the windows
could be seen a neglected bit of garden, and an untidy orchard.

But when she had wandered about the rooms a little, Rachel Henderson's
naturally buoyant temperament reasserted itself. She had brought some
bright patterns of distemper with her which she gave to Hastings with
precise instructions. She had visions of casement curtains to hide the
nakedness of the big windows with warm serge curtains to draw over them
in the winter. The floors must be stained. There should be a deep
Indian-red drugget in the sitting-room, with pigeon-blue walls, and she
thought complacently of the bits of old furniture she had been
collecting, which were stored in a friend's flat in town. An old dresser,
a grandfather's clock, some bits of brass, two arm-chairs, an old oak
table--it would all look very nice when it was done, and would cost
little. Then the bedrooms. She had brought with her some rolls of flowery
paper. She ran to fetch them from the wagonette, and pinned some pieces
against the wall. The larger room with the south aspect should be
Janet's. She would take the north room for herself. She saw them both in
her mind's eye already comfortably furnished; above all fresh and bright.
There should be no dirt or dinginess in the house, if she could help it.
In the country whitewash and distemper are cheap.

Then Hastings followed her about through the farm buildings, where her
quick eye, trained in modern ways, perceived a number of small
improvements to be made that he would never have noticed. She was always
ready, he saw, to spend money on things that would save labour or lessen
dirt. But she was not extravagant, and looking through the list of her
directions and commissions, as he hastily jotted them down, he admitted
to himself that she seemed to know what she was about. And being an
honest man himself, and good-tempered, though rather shy and dull, he
presently recognized the same qualities of honesty and good temper in
her; and took to her. Insensibly their t