"We did have a ball here once," said Lady Amelia,
"when Brotherton came of age. I can just remember it."
"Has it never been used since?" asked Mary.
"Never," said Lady Sarah. "Sometimes when it's rainy we walk up and down for exercise. It is a fine old house, but I often wish that it were smaller. I don't think people want rooms of this sort now as much as they used to do. Perhaps a time may come when my brother will make Manor Cross gay again, but it is not very gay now. I think that is all, Miss Tallowax."
"It's very fine;—very fine indeed," said Miss Tallowax, shivering. Then they all trooped back into the morning room which they used for their daily life.
The old lady when she had got back into the brougham with her nephew, the Dean, was able to express her mind freely. "I wouldn't live in that house, Henry, not if they was to give it me for nothing."
"They'd have to give you something to keep it up with."
"And not then, neither. Of course it's all very well having a bed that Queen Elizabeth slept in."
"Or didn't sleep in."
"I'd teach myself to believe she did. But dear me, that isn't everything. It nearly gave me the horrors to look at it. Room after room,—room after room,—and nobody living in any of them."