“Thank you, miss!” she said, as if Ida had conferred a personal favour.  “And they’ll take all we can let ’em have, for they’ve a mortal sight of folk up there at Brae Wood.  William says that there’s nigh upon fifty bedrooms, and that they’ll all be full.  His sister is one of the kitchen-maids—­there’s a cook from London, quite the gentleman, miss, with, rings on his fingers and a piano in his own room—­and Susie says that the place is all one mass of ivory and gold, and that some of the rooms is like heaven—­or the queen’s own rooms in Windsor Castle.”

Ida laughed.

“Susie appears to have an enviable acquaintance with the celestial regions and the abode of royalty, Jessie.”

“Yes, miss; of course, it’s only what she’ve read about ’em.  And she says that Sir Stephen—­that’s the gentleman as owns it all—­is a kind of king, with his own body servant and a—­a—­I forget what they call him; it’s a word like a book-case.”

“A secretary,” suggested Ida.

“Yes, that’s it, miss!  But that he’s quite simple and pleasant-like, and that he’s as easily pleased as if he were a mere nobody.  And Susie says that she runs out after dinner and peeps into the stables, and that it’s full of horses and that there’s a dozen carriages, some of ’em grand enough for the Lord Mayor of London; and that there’s a head coachman and eight or nine men and boys under him.  I’m thinking, Miss Ida, that the Court”—­the Court was the Vaynes’ place—­“or Bannerdale Grange ain’t half so grand.”

“I daresay,” said Ida.  “Is the lunch nearly ready, Jessie?”

“Yes, miss; I was only waiting for you to come in.  And Suzie’s seen the young Mr. Orme, Sir Stephen’s son, and she says that he’s the handsomest gentleman she ever saw; and she heard Mr. Davis tell one of the new hands that Mr. Stafford was a very great gentleman amongst the fashionable people in London; and that very likely he’d marry one of the great ladies that is coming down.  Mr. Davis says that a duchess wouldn’t be too fine for him, he stands so high; and yet, Susie says, he’s just as pleasant and easy as Sir Stephen, and that he says ’thank you’ quite like a common person.  But there, how foolish of me!  I’m standing here chattering while you’re wet through.  Do ye run up and change while I put the lunch on, Miss Ida, dear!”

When Ida came down her father was already at the table with his book open at his elbow, and he scarcely looked up as she went to her place.

Now, as a rule, she gave him an account of her rides and walks, and told him about the cattle and the progress of the farm generally, of how she had seen a kingfisher or noticed that the trout were rising, or that she had startled a covey of partridges in the young wheat; to all of which he seemed scarcely ever to listen, nodding his head now and again and returning often to his book before she had finished speaking; but to-day she could not tell him of her morning walk and her meeting with Stafford Orme.