"The master is not one for strangers, miss," interrupted the old woman. "His orders———"
The girl turned on her with a flash of her grey eyes that gave me a good notion of her imperious temper and general masterfulness.
"Fiddle-de-dee, Tibbie!" she exclaimed. "Your master would have a good deal to say if we turned anybody from his door on a night like this. You must come in," she went on, turning smilingly to me. "Mr. Parslewe is the most hospitable man alive, and if he were in he'd welcome you heartily. I don't know whether he'll manage to get home to-night or not. But I'm at home!" she concluded with a sudden glint in her eye. "Come up the stair!"
I waited for no second invitation. She was already tripping up the stair, holding her skirts daintily away from the grey stone wall, and I hastened to follow. We climbed some twenty steps, the old woman following with her lamp; then we emerged upon another and larger hall, stone-walled like that below, and ornamented with old pikes, muskets, broadswords, foxes' masks; two doors, just then thrown wide, opened from it; one revealed a
