We followed the road through the broom sedge across the field until we drew up at the rusty iron gate of the cottage.
There we alighted, and, leaving old Hector to drive the carryall around to the stable door, we entered and went up the long grass-grown walk between the black oaks, until we reached the house.
The doors and window blinds were all closed, and the faint light within gleamed fitfully through the chinks where the framework was warped.
The front door was not locked, and we entered at once into the hall that ran parallel with the front of the house, and formed, in fact, a sort of anteroom to the large parlor that lay behind it. From this hall, besides the central door before us that led into the parlor, there was a door on the right hand and one on the left, leading into the side bedchambers in the wings; and by the side of the right-hand door, nearer the front wall, was the staircase leading up to the large chamber in the gable end, that was lighted and ventilated by that fan-shaped window seen in the front of the house over the portico.
We passed through the hall, and through the large, empty parlor behind it, and entered the long dining-room in the rear.
There we found Mrs. Hawkins and Alice awaiting us among the piled-up furniture.
"You look tired and out of spirits, Madeleine. You must have worked harder than we did."
"How have you got on?" I inquired.
"Why, we have arranged the bedchambers and the kitchen—that is all. We have left the dining-room and parlor and hall to be put to rights to-morrow. But Hector has got the supper ready, and set the table in the kitchen; let us go in there; it is warmer. Come, girls—come, Will."
As I before mentioned, the kitchen, pantry, laundry and servants' rooms were in a building behind the dwelling-house, not joined to it, but standing back to back with it at a distance of three feet. So we had to go out of doors to enter the kitchen.