“I suppose,” said she, “the little lady will remain with me?”
Noll laughed:
“Oh no; she wants to see a great writer in his workshop,” he said; and the jealousy went out of the old lady’s eyes. She nodded and smiled as she withdrew to her chair by the fire.
The youngsters made a move for the heights.
Noll, when he had shut the old lady’s door, said to Betty in a whisper:
“That’s her bedroom at the back.”
They mounted the stairs.
“She lets the other floors,” added Noll, as they passed shut doors. “Netherby’s room is right at the top....”
Netherby Gomme made his visitors welcome. The talk was soon rattling at a pace.
He suddenly missed from her place the dainty little figure, and, looking up, he found that she was making a round of the attic, his beloved workshop. The child had slipped off to peer at the prints which hung tacked on to the walls on squares of stiff brown paper—the overflow from Noll’s collection. They added a delightful touch of beauty to the dingy place, and were in splendid sombre harmony with the books, themselves amongst the most decorative of all ornaments—which here held possession of every nook and cranny, and overflowed every shelf.