Grace was dressed, and just going down, when she found she wanted a pin.  She asked Jael for one.

Jael looked aghast.  “Oh, miss, I’d rather you would take one, in spite of me.”

“Well, so I will.  There!” And she whipped one away from the bosom of Jael’s dress.

“Mind, I never gave it you.”

“No.  I took it by brute force.”

“I like you too well to give you a pin.”

“May I venture to inquire what would be the consequence?”

“Ill luck, you may be sure.  Heart-trouble, they do say.”

“Well, I’m glad to escape that so easily.  Why, this is the temple of superstition, and you are the high-Priestess.  How shall I ever get on at dinner, without you?  I know I shall do something to shock Mr. Raby.  Perhaps spill the very salt.  I generally do.”

“Ay, miss, at home.  But, dear heart, you won’t see any of them nasty little salt-cellars here, that some crazy creature have invented to bring down bad luck.  You won’t spill the salt here, no fear:  but don’t ye let any body help you to it neither, if he helps you to salt, he helps you to sorrow.”

“Oh, does he?  Then it is fortunate nobody ever does help anybody to salt.  Well, yours is a nice creed.  Why, we are all at the mercy of other people, according to you.  Say I have a rival:  she smiles in my face, and says, ‘My sweet friend, accept this tribute of my esteem;’ and gives me a pinch of salt, before I know where I am.  I wither on the spot; and she sails off with the prize.  Or, if there is no salt about, she comes behind me with a pin, and pins it to my skirt, and that pierces my heart.  Don’t you see what abominable nonsense it all is?”

The argument was cut short by the ringing of a tremendous bell.

Grace gave the last, swift, searching, all-comprehensive look of her sex into the glass, and went down to the drawing-room.  There she found Mr. Raby and Mr. Coventry, who both greeted her cordially; and the next moment dinner was announced.

“Raby Hall” was a square house, with two large low wings.  The left wing contained the kitchen, pantry, scullery, bakehouse, brew-house, etc.; and servants’ bedrooms above.  The right wing the stables, coach-houses, cattle-sheds, and several bedrooms.  The main building of the hall, the best bedrooms, and the double staircase, leading up to them in horse-shoe form from the hall:  and, behind the hall, on the ground-floor, there was a morning-room, in which several of the Squire’s small tenants were even now preparing for supper by drinking tea, and eating cakes made in rude imitation of the infant Saviour.  On the right of the hall were the two drawing-rooms en suite, and on the left was the remarkable room into which the host now handed Miss Carden, and Mr. Coventry followed.  This room had been, originally, the banqueting-hall.  It was about twenty feet high, twenty-eight feet wide, and fifty feet long, and ended in an enormous bay