was up. The guide told them that there were only a few more rooms to visit,
but they said that they must be off, and demanded to be conducted to the
door. This request was an embarrassing one; it was against the rules ever
to leave visitors when going the rounds. The guide had, therefore, either
to conduct the whole party to the door or transgress his orders. After a
slight hesitation, influenced no doubt by a conversation he had had with
Lennox, in which mention was made of tickets for the theatre, he decided to
take the responsibility on himself, and asked that gentleman if he would
mind waiting a few minutes with his lady while the religious gentlemen were
being shown the way out. Lennox assented with readiness, and the three
black figures and the guide disappeared a moment after behind the bedroom
utensils. After an anxious glance round Lennox looked at Kate, who, at that
moment, was gathering to herself all the recollections that the place
evoked. She knew the room she was in well, for she used to pass through it
daily with her mother's dinner, and she remembered how in her childhood she
wondered how big the world must be to hold enough people to use such
thousands of cups and saucers. There used to be a blue tea-service in the
far corner, and she had often lingered to imagine a suitable parlour for it
and for her dream husband. One day she had torn her frock coming up the
stairs, and was terribly scolded; another time Mr. Powell, attracted by her
black curls, had stopped to speak to her, and he had given her as a present
one of the children's mugs--one exactly like those hanging over her head.
She had treasured it a long time, but at last it was broken. It seemed that
all things belonging to her had to be broken; her dreams were made in
crockery.

But as Kate looked into the past she became gradually conscious of a voice
whispering to her,

'How odd it is that you should never have thought of revisiting this place