“A small room for a small boy,” said Mrs. Carey.  “You won’t be frightened at sleeping alone?”

“Oh, no.”

On his first visit to the vicarage he had come with his nurse, and Mrs. Carey had had little to do with him.  She looked at him now with some uncertainty.

“Can you wash your own hands, or shall I wash them for you?”

“I can wash myself,” he answered firmly.

“Well, I shall look at them when you come down to tea,” said Mrs. Carey.

She knew nothing about children.  After it was settled that Philip should come down to Blackstable, Mrs. Carey had thought much how she should treat him; she was anxious to do her duty; but now he was there she found herself just as shy of him as he was of her.  She hoped he would not be noisy and rough, because her husband did not like rough and noisy boys.  Mrs. Carey made an excuse to leave Philip alone, but in a moment came back and knocked at the door; she asked him, without coming in, if he could pour out the water himself.  Then she went downstairs and rang the bell for tea.

The dining-room, large and well-proportioned, had windows on two sides of it, with heavy curtains of red rep; there was a big table in the middle; and at one end an imposing mahogany sideboard with a looking-glass in it.  In one corner stood a harmonium.  On each side of the fireplace were chairs covered in stamped leather, each with an antimacassar; one had arms and was called the husband, and the other had none and was called the wife.  Mrs. Carey never sat in the arm-chair:  she said she preferred a chair that was not too comfortable; there was always a lot to do, and if her chair had had arms she might not be so ready to leave it.

Mr. Carey was making up the fire when Philip came in, and he pointed out to his nephew that there were two pokers.  One was large and bright and polished and unused, and was called the Vicar; and the other, which was much smaller and had evidently passed through many fires, was called the Curate.

“What are we waiting for?” said Mr. Carey.

“I told Mary Ann to make you an egg.  I thought you’d be hungry after your journey.”

Mrs. Carey thought the journey from London to Blackstable very tiring.  She seldom travelled herself, for the living was only three hundred a year, and, when her husband wanted a holiday, since there was not money for two, he went by himself.  He was very fond of Church Congresses and usually managed to go up to London once a year; and once he had been to Paris for the exhibition, and two or three times to Switzerland.  Mary Ann brought in the egg, and they sat down.  The chair was much too low for Philip, and for a moment neither Mr. Carey nor his wife knew what to do.

“I’ll put some books under him,” said Mary Ann.

She took from the top of the harmonium the large Bible and the prayer-book from which the Vicar was accustomed to read prayers, and put them on Philip’s chair.