“Have they sent for Mudge?” (Mudge was the Bayfield butler.)

“Lord, no, Miss!  Small chance of getting to Mudge, or of Mudge getting to us.  Why, the snow is half-way up the front door!”

Bed was deliciously warm, and the air in the room nipping, as Dorothea found when she stretched out her hand for the cup.

“I always like waking in this room.  It gives one a sort of betwixt and between feeling—­between being at home and on a visit.  To be snowed-up makes it quite an adventure.”

“Pretty adventure for the gentry at ‘The Dogs’!  Tom Ryder, the dairyman there, managed to struggle across just now with the milk, and he says that a score of them couldn’t get beds in the town for love or money.  The rest kept it up till four in the morning, and now they’re sleeping in their fine dresses round the fire in the Orange Room.”

Dorothea laughed.  “They were caught like this just eighteen years ago—­ let me see—­yes, just eighteen.  I remember, because it was my second ball.  But then there were no prisoners filling up the lodgings, so everyone found a room.”

“Some of the French gentlemen gave up their lodgings last night, and are down at ‘The Dogs’ now keeping themselves warm.  There’s that old Admiral, for one.  I’m sure he never ought to be out of bed, with his rheumatics.  It’s enough to give him his death.  Sam Zeally says that General Rochambeau is looking after him, as tender as a mother with a babby.”

Polly mimicked Sam’s pronunciation, and laughed.  She was Somerset-born herself, but had seen service in Bath.

“Where is Mr. Endymion?”

“I heard him let himself in just as I was going upstairs after undressing you.  That would be about one, or a quarter past.  But he was up again at six, called for Mrs. Morrish to heat his shaving water, and had a cup of coffee in his room.  He and Mr. Narcissus have gone out to see the roll called, and get the volunteers and prisoners to clear the streets.  Leastways, that’s what Mr. Narcissus is doing.  I heard Mr. Endymion say something about riding off to see what the roads are like.”

By this time the fire was lit and crackling.  Polly loitered awhile, arranging the cinders.  She had given up asking with whom her mistress had danced; but Dorothea usually described the more striking gowns, and how this or that lady had worn her hair.

“Tired, Miss?”

“Well, yes, Polly; a little, but not uncomfortably.  I danced several times last night.”

Polly pursed her mouth into an O; but her face was turned to the fire, and Dorothea did not see it.

“I hope, Miss, you’ll tell me about it later on.  But Mrs. Morrish is downstairs declaring that no hen will lay an egg in this weather, to have it snowed up the next moment.  ‘Not that I blame mun,’ she says, ‘for I wouldn’t do it myself,’”—­here Polly giggled.  “What to find for breakfast she don’t know, and never will until I go and help her.”