To avoid being thanked Mrs. Bosher nodded her bonnet at Juliet and went away. Mrs. Webster also departed. Mr. Burnet asked Mitchell to meet him at the works next morning, and then he and Leonard drove off. Mrs. Bosher's brother hauled in a half-sack of coals and two great faggots from the donkey-cart, and then he, too, said good-bye.
The Rowles party stayed longer.
"Ned will come to see you, I hope," said Mrs. Rowles to her brother-in-law. "But he says he is afraid he can't come in the middle of the night; but would half-past ten be late enough?"
"Dear, dear!" said Mrs. Mitchell, somewhat puzzled. "Well, we must sit up for him if necessary; but I did hope that Thomas would have his proper nights' rests here in the country. We ought all to be in bed by ten o'clock."
"You see, Rowles cannot leave the lock unless he gets a deputy. Philip is hardly strong enough by himself. And Ned says that of course Tom can't come to the lock, being at work all night and asleep all day."
"That will not be the case here," said Mitchell smiling. "Besides, there's one or two things that I may as well explain to Rowles. Seems to me he's got some ideas upside down in his head."
"Oh, I don't know!" cried Mrs. Rowles; "but my idea is that you had better have your suppers now and go to bed as quick as you can. There'll be lots of new things to see to-morrow. And if Ned can't come you'll be sure to have Mr. Robert the butler at Bourne House, and the housekeeper. You see, they all know Juliet—" Here Mrs. Rowles broke off, and Juliet shrank away, feeling bitterly that they knew little that was good of her.
She was, however, able to eat her supper with the rest of her family, and to sleep on the shake-down of blankets, and to rise in the morning refreshed and happy and ready for the new life before her.
The carrier arrived about eleven o'clock that morning, and the few bits of furniture and so forth which had come from London were put, one by one, in new places. Mrs. Mitchell said that a pound of paint would touch them up quite smart-like.
Thomas Mitchell and Albert had not stayed at Honeysuckle Cottage to see the arrival of these goods, but had gone to the works to meet Mr. Burnet there at nine o'clock. They were told by the foreman to go into the office, and there they awaited the arrival of the master.