There were no ornaments to speak of in Greatorex’s parlor but the grocer’s tea-caddies on the mantelshelf and the little china figures, the spotted cows, the curly dogs, the boy in blue, the girl in pink; and the lustre ware and the tea-sets, the white and gold, the blue and white, crowded behind the diamond panes of the two black oak cupboards.  Of these one was set in the most conspicuous corner, the other in the middle of the long wall facing the east window, bare save for the framed photographs of Greatorex’s family, the groups, the portraits of father and mother and of grandparents, enlarged from vignettes taken in the seventies and eighties—­faces defiant, stolid and pathetic; yearning, mournful, tender faces, slightly blurred.

All these objects impressed themselves on Ally’s brain, adhering to its obsession and receiving from it an immense significance and importance.

* * * * *

She heard Maggie’s running feet, and the great leisurely steps of Greatorex, and his voice, soft and kind, encouraging Maggie.

“Theer—­that’s t’ road.  Gently, laass—­moor’ ’aaste, less spead.  Now t’ tray—­an’ a clane cloth—­t’ woon wi’ laace on ‘t.  Thot’s t’ road.”

Maggie whispered, awestruck by these preparations: 

“Which coops will yo’ ’ave, Mr. Greatorex?”

“T’ best coops, Maaggie.”

Maggie had to fetch them from the corner cupboard (they were the white and gold).  At Greatorex’s command she brought the little round oak table from its place in the front window and set it by the hearth before the visitor.  Humbly, under her master’s eye, yet with a sort of happy pride about her, she set out the tea-things and the glass dishes of jam and honey and tea-cakes.

Greatorex waited, silent and awkward, till his servant had left the room.  Then he came forward.

“Theer’s caake,” he said.  “Maaggie baaked un yesterda’.  An’ theer’s hooney.”

He made no servile apologies for what he set before her.  He was giving her nothing that was not good, and he knew it.

And he sat down facing her and watched her pour out her tea and help herself with her little delicate hands.  If he had been a common man, a peasant, his idea of courtesy would have been to leave her to herself, to turn away his eyes from her in that intimate and sacred act of eating and drinking.  But Greatorex was a farmer, the descendant of yeomen, and by courtesy a yeoman still, and courtesy bade him watch and see that his guest wanted for nothing.

That he did not sit down at the little table and drink tea with her himself showed that his courtesy knew where to draw the dividing line.

“But why aren’t you having anything yourself?” said Alice.  She really wondered.

He smiled.  “It’s a bit too early for me, thank yo’.  Maaggie’ll mak’ me a coop by and bye.”

And she said to herself, “How beautifully he did it.”