ladyship's:--

"Your hands are very cold, my dear; take off those gloves" (I wore thick
serviceable doeskin, and had been too shy to take them off unbidden),
"and let me try and warm them--the evenings are very chilly." And she
held my great red hands in hers,--soft, warm, white, ring-laden. Looking
at last a little wistfully into my face, she said--"Poor child! And
you're the eldest of nine! I had a daughter who would have been just
your age; but I cannot fancy her the eldest of nine." Then came a pause
of silence; and then she rang her bell, and desired her waiting-maid,
Adams, to show me to my room.

It was so small that I think it must have been a cell. The walls were
whitewashed stone; the bed was of white dimity. There was a small piece
of red staircarpet on each side of the bed, and two chairs. In a closet
adjoining were my washstand and toilet-table. There was a text of
Scripture painted on the wall right opposite to my bed; and below hung a
print, common enough in those days, of King George and Queen Charlotte,
with all their numerous children, down to the little Princess Amelia in a
go-cart. On each side hung a small portrait, also engraved: on the left,
it was Louis the Sixteenth; on the other, Marie-Antoinette. On the
chimney-piece there was a tinder-box and a Prayer-book. I do not
remember anything else in the room. Indeed, in those days people did not
dream of writing-tables, and inkstands, and portfolios, and easy chairs,
and what not. We were taught to go into our bedrooms for the purposes of
dressing, and sleeping, and praying.

Presently I was summoned to supper. I followed the young lady who had
been sent to call me, down the wide shallow stairs, into the great hall,
through which I had first passed on my way to my Lady Ludlow's room.