It was late on the evening of the Monday beginning the important week that they arrived at Charlottesville, and proceeded at once to the house of the bishop's widow.
They found the house hospitably lighted up, and open.
Their hostess, a dignified gentlewoman, received them with great cordiality, and rather as guests than as lodgers.
She showed the ladies to the two communicating rooms on the first floor that they were to occupy—large, airy, pleasant rooms, with a fresh breeze blowing from front to back. Each room had two neat white-draped single beds in it.
"If you please, Mrs. Wheatfield, which of these was Mrs. Grey's apartment?" inquired Emma Cavendish.
"This back room overlooking the flower-garden. But as the front room was unoccupied she had the use of that also, whenever she wished it," answered the bishop's widow.
"I was very sorry to hear from her by letter that she would not be able to remain here to receive us," said Miss Cavendish.
"Ah, my dear, I was just as sorry to have her go away! A sweet woman she is, Miss Cavendish," answered Mrs. Wheatfield.
"Why did she go? Is her health so very bad, Mrs. Wheatfield?"
"My dear, I think that her malady is more of the mind than of the body. But I believe that she went away only to give up these rooms to you and your friends, because there were no other suitable rooms to be obtained for you in Charlottesville."