But soon the fragrant Mocha, the luscious waffles and the savory venison steaks and other appetizing edibles combined to dispel the gloom and enliven their spirits.
After breakfast Judy sent for the housekeeper, and claimed her promise to show them through the building.
Mrs. Basset was only too willing to oblige. The five friends, led by their conductress, went first up the grand staircase that led from the lower to the upper halls on every floor to the top of the house.
“We had better go to the top first, ma’am, while we are fresh, else we might find the stairs hard to climb,” said Mrs. Basset.
And Judy, as she knew that the old woman spoke chiefly in the interests of her own infirmities, answered promptly:
“You know best, Mrs. Basset. Suit yourself, and you will suit us.”
They went upstairs to the low-ceiled rooms under the roof, which Mrs. Basset described as servants’ bedrooms—storerooms for furniture out of season, boxes, etc.
Then to the next below, all extra bedrooms, and to the next below that, all family suites of apartments; and down to the next, on which were the long drawing and the ballroom, which, with the broad hall between them, took up the whole flat.
Lastly, they came down to the first floor, on which were the long dining-room, the breakfast room, the parlor, the library and the picture gallery, which was the last place to be inspected.
The family portraits were arranged in chronological order, beginning with the Saxon ancestor of the eighth century, who, with rudest arms and in rudest clothing, resisted the first invasion of the Danes, and whose “counterfeit presentment” here was probably but the work of the rough artist’s imagination, executed, or rather perpetrated, at a much later date.