Forty years before, when the Squire had succeeded his grandfather, his six spinster aunts had left him in undisturbed possession of the great house and taken up their abode here, very seldom to leave, until one by one they had been carried off to their grave in Kencote churchyard. Aunt Ellen, the eldest of them all, had died at a great age a few months before, and Aunt Laura, the youngest, who was now seventy-eight, had removed herself and her belongings to a smaller house in the village. Neither Dick nor, of course, the twins had ever known the dower-house unassociated with the quiet lives of the old ladies, and they shared in their different degree the same feeling of strangeness as they stood under the porch and listened to the bell echoing in the empty house. It was like a human body from which life had departed, but with its age and many memories it still kept a soul of its own which could be revivified by fresh occupancy.
They went through all the rooms. There was a great deal of fine old furniture in them, things which Clintons of past centuries had bought new, never thinking that they would some day acquire merit as antiquities. There were few such things in the great house, which had been rebuilt after a fire in the reign of Queen Anne and refurnished later still, in the reign of Queen Victoria. Nor had the beautiful things of which the dower-house was full been valued in the least by their owners until long after the six maiden aunts had gone to live there. They had been simply old-fashioned in the eyes of the Squire, their owner, and were so still, for he had no knowledge of such things, and no appreciation of them. Dick knew a little more, and as he looked at one fine old piece of furniture after another, standing forlorn on the carpetless floors, or against the dark panelling of the walls, he said, "By Jove! Twankies, there's some good stuff in this old shanty."
"Who is going to live in it?" asked Joan.
"Ah, that's the question!" replied Dick. "Tell you what, Twankies, let's play a game. Supposing I ever got married, I should live here, you know. Let's see how the rooms would pan out."
The twins were quite ready to play this or any other game, although it did not promise much excitement, because there were only quite a limited number of rooms, and most of them were more or less obviously labelled. It seemed, however, that Dick was prepared to play the game seriously, for after they had fixed the dining-room, drawing-room, morning-room, and smoking-room, and a tiny oak parlour which the aunts had used for garden chairs and implements and Dick said would do for his guns if a baize-lined glass cupboard were put up in a recess by the fireplace, he inspected the kitchen premises with some thoroughness.
"I say, Dick, are you going to get married and come and live here?" asked Joan, as he began to make notes on the back of an envelope.
"There's more in this than meets the eye," observed Nancy.
"Small Twankies mustn't ask impertinent questions," replied Dick. "But I'll tell you exactly how it stands, and you mustn't let it go any further."
"Oh, rather not," said Joan.
"Our ears are all agog," said Nancy.