It had lain tenantless for two years, when one spring morning Miss Bracy and Mr. Frank Bracy arrived and took possession.  They came (for aught we knew) out of nowhere; but they brought a good many boxes, six cats, and a complete set of new muslin blinds.  On their way they purchased a quart of fresh milk, and Mr. Frank fed the cats while Miss Bracy put up the blinds.  In the afternoon a long van arrived with a load of furniture; and we children who had gathered to watch were rewarded by a sensation when the van started by disgorging an artist’s lay-figure, followed by a suit of armour.  From these to a mahogany chest of drawers with brass handles was a sad drop, and we never regained the high romance of those first few minutes; but the furniture was undeniably handsome, and when Miss Bracy stepped out and offered us sixpence apiece to go and annoy somebody else, we came away convinced that our visitors were persons of exceptionally high rank.  It puzzled us afterwards that, though a bargain is a bargain, not one of us had stayed to claim his sixpence.

The newcomers brought no servants; but after a week there arrived (also out of nowhere) an elderly and taciturn cook.  Also, Miss Bracy on the third morning walked up to the farm at the head of the valley and hired down the hind’s second daughter for a “help.”  We knew this girl, Lizzie Truscott, and waylaid her on her homeward road that evening for information.  She told us that Miss Bracy’s cats had a cradle apiece lined with muslin over pink calico; that the window curtains inside reached from the ceilings to the floors; that the number of knives and forks was something cruel—­one kind for fish, another for meat, and a third for fruit; that in one of the looking-glasses a body could see herself at one time from head to feet, though why you should want a looking-glass to see your feet in when you could see them without was more than she knew; and, finally, that Miss Bracy had strictly forbidden her to carry tales—­a behest which, convinced that Miss Bracy had dealings with the Evil One, she meant to observe.  The elderly cook when she arrived warned us away from the door with a dialect we did not recognise.  Her name (Lizzie reported) was Deborah, and in our haste we set her down for a Jewess; but I seem to have detected her accent since, and a few of her pet phrases, in the pages of Scottish fiction.

This is all I can tell—­so fitful are childish memories—­of the coming of Miss Bracy and Mr. Frank.  I cannot say, for instance, what gossip it bred, or how soon they wore down the edge of it and became, with their eccentricities, an accepted feature of the spot they had made their home.  They made no friends, no acquaintances:  everyone knew of Miss Bracy’s cats, but few had seen them.  Miss Bracy herself was on view in church every Sunday morning, when Mr. Frank walked with her as far as the porch.  He never entered the building, but took a country walk during service, returning