"Nay, girl. Not so much as a word. I trow he'll have but little to say to me. Ay—ay—a humorous limb, thy father, lass."
She swept out of the room with a toss of the head, and Phœbe smiled as she turned to climb the stairs. Immediately she turned again and held out one hand to Rebecca.
"Come along, Rebecca. Let's run 'long up," she said, relapsing into her old manner.
She led the way without hesitation to a large, light bedroom, the front of which hung over the street. Here, too, the floor was covered with sweet rushes, a fact which Rebecca seemed to resent.
"Why the lands sakes do you suppose these London folks dump weeds on their floors?" she asked. "An' look there at those two beds, still unmade and all tumbled disgraceful!"
"Why, there's where we slept last night, Rebecca," said Phœbe, laughing as she dropped into a chair. "As for the floors," she continued, "they're always that way when folks ain't mighty rich. The lords and all have carpets and rugs."
Rebecca, stepping very high to avoid stumbling in the rushes, moved over to the dressing-table and proceeded to remove her outer wraps, having first deposited her bag and umbrella on a chair.
"I don't see how in gracious you know so much about it," she remarked, querulously. "'Pon my word, you acted with that young jackanapes an' that fat old lady downstairs jest's ef you'd allus known em."
"Well, so I have," Phœbe replied, smiling. "I knew them all nearly three hundred years before you were born, Rebecca Wise."
Rebecca dropped into a chair and looked helplessly at her sister with her arms hanging at her sides.