Henry turned yellow, and rose to his feet.

Grace observed him, and replied, “Oh, Mr. Coventry, this is too high-flown.  Let us both return thanks to the Almighty, who has preserved us, and, in the next place, to Mr. Little:  we should both be dead but for him.”  Then, before he could reply, she turned to Little, and said, beseechingly, “Mr. Coventry has been the companion of my danger.”

“Oh, I’ll do the best I can for him,” said Henry, doggedly.  “Draw nearer the fire, sir.”  He then put some coal on the forge, and blew up an amazing fire:  he also gave the hand-bellows to Mr. Coventry, and set him to blow at the small grates in the mausoleum.  He then produced a pair of woolen stockings.  “Now, Miss Carden,” said he, “just step into that pew, if you please, and make a dressing-room of it.”

She demurred, faintly, but he insisted, and put her into the great pew, and shut her in.

“And now, please take off your shoes and stockings, and hand them over the pew to me.”

“Oh, Mr. Little:  you are giving yourself so much trouble.”

“Nonsense.  Do what you are bid.”  He said this a little roughly.

“I’ll do whatever you bid me,” said she, meekly:  and instantly took off her dripping shoes, and stockings, and handed them over the pew.  She received, in return, a nice warm pair of worsted stockings.

“Put on these directly,” said he, “while I warm your shoes.”

He dashed all the wet he could out of the shoes, and, taking them to the forge, put hot cinders in:  he shook the cinders up and down the shoes so quickly, they had not time to burn, but only to warm and dry them.  He advised Coventry to do the same, and said he was sorry he had only one pair of stockings to lend.  And that was a lie:  for he was glad he had only one pair to lend.  When he had quite dried the shoes, he turned round, and found Grace was peeping over the pew, and looking intolerably lovely in the firelight.  He kissed the shoes furtively, and gave them to her.  She shook her head in a remonstrating way, but her eyes filled.

He turned away, and, rousing all his generous manhood, said, “Now you must both eat something, before you go.”  He produced a Yorkshire pie, and some bread, and a bottle of wine.  He gave Mr. Coventry a saucepan, and set him to heat the wine; then turned up his sleeves to the shoulder, blew his bellows, and, with his pincers, took a lath of steel and placed it in the white embers.  “I have only got one knife, and you won’t like to eat with that.  I must forge you one apiece.”

Then Grace came out, and stood looking on, while he forged knives, like magic, before the eyes of his astonished guests.  Her feet were now as warm as a toast, and her healthy young body could resist all the rest.  She stood, with her back to the nearest pew, and her hands against the pew too, and looked with amazement, and dreamy complacency, at the strange scene before her:  a scene well worthy of Salvator Rosa; though, in fact, that painter never had the luck to hit on so variegated a subject.