There was real good-nature and delight
in my cousin's greeting, and a kind of
constitutional confidence of manner which
placed me at once at ease, and made me
feel immediately upon terms of intimacy
with her. The room into which she
ushered me, although partaking in the
general air of decay which pervaded the
mansion and all about it, had nevertheless
been fitted up with evident attention to
comfort, and even with some dingy attempt
at luxury; but what pleased me most was
that it opened, by a second door, upon a
lobby which communicated with my fair
cousin's apartment; a circumstance which
divested the room, in my eyes, of the air
of solitude and sadness which would otherwise
have characterised it, to a degree
almost painful to one so dejected in spirits
as I was.

After such arrangements as I found
necessary were completed, we both went
down to the parlour, a large wainscoted
room, hung round with grim old portraits,
and, as I was not sorry to see, containing
in its ample grate a large and cheerful
fire. Here my cousin had leisure to talk
more at her ease; and from her I learned
something of the manners and the habits