A housemaid now came forward with bed candles, to show Miss Carden to her room. Grace was going up, as a matter of course, when Jael, busy helping the footman with her boxes, called after her: “The stocking, miss! the stocking!”
Grace looked down at her feet in surprise.
“There it is, hung up by the door. We must put our presents into it before we go upstairs.”
“Must we? what on earth am I to give?”
“Oh, any thing will do. See, I shall put in this crooked sixpence.”
Grace examined her purse, and complained that all her stupid sixpences were straight.
“Never mind, miss; put in a hairpin, sooner than pass the stocking o' Christmas Eve.”
Grace had come prepared to encounter old customs. She offered her shawl-pin: and Jael, who had modestly inserted her own gift, pinned Grace's offering on the outside of the stocking with a flush of pride. Then they went upstairs with the servant, and Grace was ushered into a bedroom of vast size, with two huge fires burning at each end; each fireplace was flanked with a coal-scuttle full of kennel coal in large lumps, and also with an enormous basket of beech billets. She admired the old-fashioned furniture, and said, “Oh, what a palace of a bedroom! This will spoil me for my little poky room. Here one can roam about and have great thoughts. Hillsborough, good-by! I end my days in the country.”
Presently her quick ears caught the rattle of swift wheels upon the hard road: she ran to the window, and peeped behind the curtain. Two brilliant lamps were in sight, and drew nearer and nearer, like great goggling eyes, and soon a neat dog-cart came up to the door. Before it had well-stopped, the hospitable door flew open, and the yule fire shone on Mr. Coventry, and his natty groom, and his dog cart with plated axles; it illumined the silver harness, and the roan horse himself, and the breath that poured into the keen air from his nostrils red inside.
Mr. Coventry dropped from his shoulders, with easy grace, something between a coat and a cloak, lined throughout with foxes' skin; and, alighting, left his groom to do the rest. The fur was reddish, relieved with occasional white; and Grace gloated over it, as it lay glowing in the fire-light. “Ah,” said she, “I should never do for a poor man's wife: I'm so fond of soft furs and things, and I don't like poky rooms.” With that she fell into a reverie, which was only interrupted by the arrival of Jael and her boxes.