“My goodness gracious, Master Thurstan, when will you learn to leave off meddling with other folks’ business?  Here, Ben! help me up with these trunks.”  The little narrow passage was cleared, and Miss Benson took Ruth into the sitting-room.  There were only two sitting-rooms on the ground-floor, one behind the other.  Out of the back room the kitchen opened, and for this reason the back parlour was used as the family sitting-room; or else, being, with its garden aspect, so much the pleasanter of the two, both Sally and Miss Benson would have appropriated it for Mr. Benson’s study.  As it was, the front room, which looked to the street, was his room; and many a person coming for help—­help of which giving money was the lowest kind—­was admitted, and let forth by Mr. Benson, unknown to any one else in the house.  To make amends for his having the least cheerful room on the ground-floor, he had the garden bedroom, while his sister slept over his study.  There were two more rooms again over these, with sloping ceilings, though otherwise large and airy.  The attic looking into the garden was the spare bedroom; while the front belonged to Sally.  There was no room over the kitchen, which was, in fact, a supplement to the house.  The sitting-room was called by the pretty, old-fashioned name of the parlour, while Mr. Benson’s room was styled the study.

The curtains were drawn in the parlour; there was a bright fire and a clean hearth; indeed, exquisite cleanliness seemed the very spirit of the household, for the door which was open to the kitchen showed a delicately-white and spotless floor, and bright glittering tins, on which the ruddy firelight danced.

From the place in which Ruth sat she could see all Sally’s movements; and though she was not conscious of close or minute observation at the time (her body being weary, and her mind full of other thoughts), yet it was curious how faithfully that scene remained depicted on her memory in after years.  The warm light filled every corner of the kitchen, in strong distinction to the faint illumination of the one candle in the parlour, whose radiance was confined, and was lost in the dead folds of window-curtains, carpet, and furniture.  The square, stout, bustling figure, neat and clean in every respect, but dressed in the peculiar, old-fashioned costume of the county, namely, a dark-striped linsey-woolsey petticoat, made very short, displaying sturdy legs in woollen stockings beneath; a loose kind of jacket, called there a “bedgown,” made of pink print, a snow-white apron and cap, both of linen, and the latter made in the shape of a “mutch";—­these articles completed Sally’s costume, and were painted on Ruth’s memory.  Whilst Sally was busied in preparing tea, Miss Benson took off Ruth’s things; and the latter instinctively felt that Sally, in the midst of her movements, was watching their proceedings.  Occasionally she also put in a word in the conversation, and these little sentences were uttered quite in the tone of an equal, if not of a superior.  She had dropped the more formal “you,” with which at first she had addressed Miss Benson, and thou’d her quietly and habitually.