"Can I see her?"
James opened more widely the door. "Happen you'd better step inside," said he.
"Thanks, Mr. Ollerenshaw. What—er—fine weather we're having!"
James ignored this quite courteous and truthful remark. He shut the door, went into the kitchen, and called up the stairs: "Helen, a young man to see ye."
In the bedroom, Helen and Sarah Swetnam had exhausted the Brunt hat, and were spaciously at sea in an enchanted ocean of miscellaneous gossip such as is only possible between two highly-educated women who scorn tittle-tattle. Helen had the back bedroom; partly because the front bedroom was her uncle's, but partly also because the back bedroom was just as large as and much quieter than the other, and because she preferred it. There had been no difficulty about furniture. Even so good a landlord as James Ollerenshaw is obliged now and then to go to extremes in the pursuit of arrears of rent, and the upper part of the house was crowded with choice specimens of furniture which had once belonged to the more magnificent of his defaulting tenants. Helen's bedroom was not "finished"; nor, since she regarded it as a temporary lodging rather than a permanent habitation, was she in a mind to finish it. Still, with her frocks dotted about, the hat on the four-post bed, and her silver-mounted brushes and manicure tools on the dressing-table, it had a certain stylishness. Sarah shared the bed with the hat. Helen knelt at a trunk.
"Whatever made you think of coming to Bursley?" Sarah questioned.
"Don't you think it's better than Longshaw?" said Helen.
"Yes, my darling child. But that's not why you came. If you ask me, I believe it was your deliberate intention to capture your great-uncle. Anyhow, I congratulate you on your success."
"Ah!" Helen murmured, smiling to herself, "I'm not out of the wood yet."
"What do you mean?"