everybody mad about her, wherever she went. Her singing, her playing,
her painting, her dancing, her beautiful smile, and sunshiny ringlets!
She was always the talk of a place, as long as we stayed in it."

"Is she at home to-night?"

"No; she has gone out with Sir Michael to a dinner party at the Beeches.
They've seven or eight miles to drive, and they won't be back till after
eleven."

"Then I'll tell you what, Phoebe, if the inside of the house is so
mighty fine, I should like to have a look at it."

"You shall, then. Mrs. Barton, the housekeeper, knows you by sight, and
she can't object to my showing you some of the best rooms."

It was almost dark when the cousins left the shrubbery and walked slowly
to the house. The door by which they entered led into the servants'
hall, on one side of which was the housekeeper's room. Phoebe Marks
stopped for a moment to ask the housekeeper if she might take her cousin
through some of the rooms, and having received permission to do so,
lighted a candle at the lamp in the hall, and beckoned to Luke to follow
her into the other part of the house.

The long, black oak corridors were dim in the ghostly twilight--the
light carried by Phoebe looking only a poor speck in the broad passages
through which the girl led her cousin. Luke looked suspiciously over his
shoulder now and then, half-frightened by the creaking of his own
hob-nailed boots.