“I feel all the better for that cup of tea. Now, I think, if you’ll show us the way, we’ll go upstairs and have a good wash, and make ourselves presentable—not that you dress much for dinner, I suppose?”
I conclude I, too, was all the better for my cup of tea, for I felt myself warming to the work—and I led the way washstandwards most cordially. I didn’t take them out into the hall to the more modern staircase, I opened the door in the corner of the room, and revealed the steep stone stairs; and you should have heard their gurgles and squeals.
“Oh, dearest, do look. Isn’t it primitive? And do you go up and down this every day?”
“Oh, no,” I couldn’t help replying. “We only use this when visitors are here. On ordinary occasions we get in and out of the bedroom windows, and hop down the honeysuckle.”
She drew herself up reprimandingly; she evidently wished me to understand that, though she was willing to treat me as an equal so long as I behaved myself, she couldn’t allow any undue familiarity on my part.
“I don’t suppose you would see anything unusual in such an approach to the upper storeys, having been used to it all your life,” she said distantly; “but accustomed as we are to our magnificent staircase at home—wide enough to drive up a carriage and pair, isn’t it, dear?”—
“Er—nearly——” (Dear was the more truthful of the two, I fancy.)
“—And our beautiful pile carpet, in rich reds and blues, and the thickest of stair-pads underneath, till you would think you were walking on real Turkey carpet, this naturally strikes us as—how shall I put it so as not to hurt your feelings?—as—as very humorous, you know!”
“I quite understand,” I said, as we entered my bedroom.