"I would give all the world to speak to the Banshee alone--to ask
her to get father out of his difficulty."

She was half-ashamed of these thoughts, although she knew and almost
gloried in the fact that she was superstitious to her heart's core.

She and Biddy soon entered the house by the back entrance, and ran up
some carpetless stairs to Biddy's own room. This was a huge bedroom,
carpetless and nearly bare. A little camp-bed stood in one corner,
covered by a colored counterpane; there was a strip of carpet beside
the bed, and another tiny strip by a wooden washhand-stand. The two
great parliament windows were destitute of any curtain or even blind;
they stared blankly out across the lovely summer landscape as hideous
as windows could be.

It was a perfect summer's evening; but even now the old frames
rattled and shook, and gave some idea of how they would behave were
a storm abroad.

Biddy, who was quite accustomed to her room and never dreamed that
any maiden could sleep in a more luxurious chamber, crossed it to
where a huge wooden wardrobe stood. She unlocked the door, and took
from its depths a pale-blue skirt trimmed with quantities of dirty
pink flounces.

"Oh, you are not going to put _that_ on," said Nora, whose own
training had made her sensitive to incongruity in dress.

"Yes, I am," said Biddy. "How can I see your lady-mother in this
style of thing?"