The windows were open, but with the sultry breath of August little din of business came into the room; the place was very quiet.  The house was empty and still; seldom a footfall could be heard overhead.  Clam was busy, up stairs and down, but she went with a light step when she pleased, and she pleased it now.  It was a relief to have the change of falling night; and then the breeze from the sea began to come in at the windows and freshen the hot rooms; and twilight deepened.  Elizabeth wished for a light then, but for once in her life hesitated about ringing the bell; for she had heard Clam going up and down and feared she might be busied for some one else.  And she thought, with a heart full, how dismal this coming on of night would have been, but for the friend up stairs.  Elizabeth wished bitterly she could follow his advice.

She sat looking out of the open window into the duskiness, and at the yellow lights of the street lamps which by this time spotted it; thinking so, and feeling very miserable.  By and by Clam came in with a candle and began to let down the blinds.

“What are you going to do?” said her mistress.  “You needn’t pull those down.”

“Folks’ll see in,” said Clam.

“No they won’t —­ there’s no light here.”

“There’s goin’ to be, though,” said Clam.  “Things is goin’ straight in this house, as two folks can make ’em.”

“I don’t want anything —­ you may let the lamps alone, Clam.”

“I dursn’t,” said Clam, going on leisurely to light the two large burners of the mantle lamps, —­ “Mr. Winthrop told me to get tea for you and do everything just as it was every night; so I knowed these had to be flarin’ up —­ You ain’t goin’ to be allowed to sit in the shades no longer.”

“I don’t want anything!” said Elizabeth.  “Don’t bring any tea here.”

“Then I’ll go up and tell him his orders is contradickied,” said Clam.

“Stop!” said her mistress when she had reached the door walking off, —­ “don’t carry any foolish speech up stairs at such a time as this; —­ fetch what you like and do what you like, —­ I don’t care.”

The room was brilliantly lighted now; and Clam set the salver on the table and brought in the tea-urn; and miserable as she felt, Elizabeth half confessed to herself that her coadjutor up stairs was right.  Better this pain than the other.  If the body was nothing a gainer, the mind perhaps might be, for keeping up the wonted habits and appearances.

“Ask Mr. Landholm to come down, Clam.”

“I did ask him,” said the handmaiden, “and he don’t want nothin’ but biscuits, and he’s got lots o’ them.”

“Won’t he have a cup of tea?”

“He knows his own mind mostly,” said Clam; “and he says he won’t.”

“What arrangements can you make for his sleeping up there to-night, Clam?”

“Him and me ’ll see to it,” responded Clam confidently.  “I know pretty much what’s in the house; and the best of it ain’t too good for him.”