Ida laughed.
"That's pride on Jason's part; wicked pride, Jessie," she said. "If you sell your butter and eggs, it can't very much matter whether you sell them at the market or direct. Oh, yes: tell Jason he can let them have anything we can spare."
Jessie's face cleared and broke into a smile: she came of a race that looks after the pennies and loves a good "deal."
"Thank you, miss!" she said, as if Ida had conferred a personal favour. "And they'll take all we can let 'em have, for they've a mortal sight of folk up there at Brae Wood. William says that there's nigh upon fifty bedrooms, and that they'll all be full. His sister is one of the kitchen-maids—there's a cook from London, quite the gentleman, miss, with, rings on his fingers and a piano in his own room—and Susie says that the place is all one mass of ivory and gold, and that some of the rooms is like heaven—or the queen's own rooms in Windsor Castle."
Ida laughed.
"Susie appears to have an enviable acquaintance with the celestial regions and the abode of royalty, Jessie."
"Yes, miss; of course, it's only what she've read about 'em. And she says that Sir Stephen—that's the gentleman as owns it all—is a kind of king, with his own body servant and a—a—I forget what they call him; it's a word like a book-case."
"A secretary," suggested Ida.
"Yes, that's it, miss! But that he's quite simple and pleasant-like, and that he's as easily pleased as if he were a mere nobody. And Susie says that she runs out after dinner and peeps into the stables, and that it's full of horses and that there's a dozen carriages, some of 'em grand enough for the Lord Mayor of London; and that there's a head coachman and eight or nine men and boys under him. I'm thinking, Miss Ida, that the Court"—the Court was the Vaynes' place—"or Bannerdale Grange ain't half so grand."
"I daresay," said Ida. "Is the lunch nearly ready, Jessie?"