.

The door was opened for him by an old servant in black, who proposed
at once to show him to his room. He looked round the vast hall,
which, when he had before known it, was ever filled with signs of
life, and felt at once that it was empty and deserted. It struck him
as intolerably cold, and he saw that the huge fireplace was without a
spark of fire. Dinner, the servant said, was prepared for half-past
seven. Would Mr. Finn wish to dress? Of course he wished to dress.
And as it was already past seven he hurried up stairs to his room.
Here again everything was cold and wretched. There was no fire, and
the man had left him with a single candle. There were candlesticks on
the dressing-table, but they were empty. The man had suggested hot
water, but the hot water did not come. In his poorest days he had
never known discomfort such as this, and yet Mr. Kennedy was one of
the richest commoners of Great Britain.

But he dressed, and made his way down stairs, not knowing where
he should find his host or his host's mother. He recognised the
different doors and knew the rooms within them, but they seemed
inhospitably closed against him, and he went and stood in the cold
hall. But the man was watching for him, and led him into a small
parlour. Then it was explained to him that Mr. Kennedy's state of
health did not admit of late dinners. He was to dine alone, and Mr.
Kennedy would receive him after dinner. In a moment his cheeks became
red, and a flash of wrath crossed his heart. Was he to be treated
in this way by a man on whose behalf,--with no thought of his own
comfort or pleasure,--he had made this long and abominable journey?
Might it not be well for him to leave the house without seeing Mr.
Kennedy at all? Then he remembered that he had heard it whispered
that the man had become bewildered in his mind. He relented,
therefore, and condescended to eat his dinner.

A very poor dinner it was. There was a morsel of flabby white fish,
as to the nature of which Phineas was altogether in doubt, a beef
steak as to the nature of which he was not at all in doubt, and a
little crumpled-up tart which he thought the driver of the fly must
have brought with him from the pastry-cook's at Callender. There was
some very hot sherry, but not much of it. And there was a bottle of
claret, as to which Phineas, who was not usually particular in the
matter of wine, persisted in declining to have anything to do with
it after the first attempt.