“Yes, do!” answered Miss Vancourt, with a little yawn; “And show me to my rooms;—­you prepared the ones I told you—­my mother’s rooms?”

“Yes, Miss,” answered Mrs. Spruce in subdued accents; “I’ve made them all fresh and sweet and clean; but of course the furniture is left jest as it was when the Squire locked ’em all up after he lost his lady—­”

Maryllia said nothing, but followed the housekeeper upstairs, the great dog Plato in attendance on her steps.  On reaching the bedroom, hung with faded rose silk hangings, and furnished with sixteenth century oak, she looked at everything:  with a curious wistfulness and reverence.  Approaching the dressing-table, she glanced at her own reflection in the mirror; but fair as the reflection was that glanced back at her, she gave it no smile.  She was serious and absorbed, and her eyes were clouded with a sudden mist of tears.  Mrs. Spruce took the opportunity to slip away with her collection of peacocks’ feathers, and descended in haste to the kitchen, where for some time the various orders she issued caused much domestic perturbation, and fully expressed the chaotic condition of her own mind.  The maid, Nancy Pyrle, was hustled off to ’wait on Miss Vancourt upstairs, and don’t be clumsy with your ’ands, whatever you do!’—­Primmins, the butler, was sent to remove the tea-things from the morning-room,—­at which command he turned round somewhat indignantly, asking ‘who are you a-orderin’ of; don’t you think I know my business?’—­Spruce himself, unhappily coming by chance to the kitchen door to ask if it was really true that Miss Vancourt had arrived, was shrilly told to ’go along and mind his own business,’—­ and so it happened that when Bainton appeared, charged with the Reverend John Walden’s message concerning the Five Sisters, he might as well have tried to obtain an unprepared audience with the King, as to see or speak with the lady of the Manor.  Miss Vancourt had arrived—­oh yes, she had certainly arrived, Mrs. Spruce told him, with much heat and energy; but she was tired and was lying down, and certainly could not be asked to see anyone, no matter what the business was.  And to make things more emphatic, at the very time that Bainton was urging his cause, and Mrs. Spruce was firmly rejecting it, Nancy Pyrle came down from attendance on her mistress and said that Miss Vancourt was going to sleep a little, and she did not wish to be disturbed till she rang her bell.

“Oh, and she’s beautiful!” said Nancy, drawing a long breath,—­“and so very kind!  She showed me how to do all she wanted—­and was that patient and gentle!  She says I’ll make quite a good maid after a bit!”