"Oh, don't trouble, ma'am."
"It's no trouble; I should like some myself. The fire's out in the kitchen. We can boil the kettle here."
They went through the baize door into the long passage. Mrs. Barfield told Esther where was the pantry, the kitchen, and the larder. Esther answered that she remembered quite well, and it seemed to her not a little strange that she should know these things. Mrs. Barfield said—
"So you haven't forgotten Woodview, Esther?"
"No, ma'am. It seems like yesterday…. But I'm afraid the damp has got into the kitchen, ma'am, the range is that neglected——"
"Ah, Woodview isn't what it was."
Mrs. Barfield told how she had buried her husband in the old village church. She had taken her daughter to Egypt; she had dwindled there till there was little more than a skeleton to lay in the grave.
"Yes, ma'am, I know how it takes them, inch by inch. My husband died of consumption."
They sat talking for hours. One thing led to another and Esther gradually told Mrs. Barfield the story of her life from the day they bade each other good-bye in the room they were now sitting in.
"It is quite a romance, Esther."