Miss Doyne and her companion did not ascend to the first floor, but turned into a long flagged passage—papered with a hideous stone-grey pattern—out of which opened several rooms. In the first of these, Mrs. Doyne was discovered seated at a large mahogany table which was strewn with skeins of silks and ragged paper patterns. By the light of an old-fashioned lamp, she was busily engaged in embroidering an exquisite tea-cloth in various shades of blue.
As she raised her eyes, when the door opened, it was pitiful to see their faded colour, and red-rimmed lids—the toll of work and tears. A cap of real lace crowned her white hair, and a little knitted shawl was closely drawn round her bent shoulders. The old lady was woefully small and shrunken, but she had delicate features, and, for all her squalid surroundings, a certain air of distinction.
“Oh, Denis,” she exclaimed, “I’m mighty glad to see you. Take off your coat and warm yourself.” Then, looking over her shoulder, “Faith, I forgot; there’s no fire! We are a bit short of coal, and I can’t stand the smell of that oil stove—though it boils a kettle. Biddy, my heart, will you go and get tea, and make us a bit of toast at the end of the passage? That is, as you know,” to D’Arcy, “our kitchen.”
“Shall I lend a hand?”
“No, no, you stay with me, Denis; you’ll only hinder her. Biddy’s a grand maid-of-all-work, since poor Peggy died.”
“Poor Peggy!—she must have been a great age—though she always looked the same, as long as I can remember.”
“That’s only six and twenty years, and Peggy was over ninety; she was active to the last, but her mind was gone—she could not remember anything, except what happened fifty years ago.”
“Yes,” agreed Bridget, “and she was always telling us that somewhere or other there was what was called ‘a power of money’ in this house!”
“A house as bare as a picked bone,” said Mrs. Doyne; “but Bridgie, my dear, why are you not getting the tea?”
As soon as she had left the room, the old lady put down her work, and, looking at Denis over her spectacles, said: