"Aye, they're burnin'," said Thyrza, with a shrug. Then she looked round her with a toss of her decidedly graceful head. "But it's a creepy old place howivver. I'd not live here if I was paid. What does Muster Melrose want wi' coomin' here? He's got lots o' money, Mr. Tyson says. He'll nivver stay. What was the use o' turnin' father out, an' makkin' a lot o' trouble?"
"This house is not a farmin' house," said Dixon slowly, surveying the girl, as she sat on the packing-case swinging her feet, her straw-coloured hair and pink cotton dress making a spot of pleasant colour in the darkness as the lamp-light fell on them. "It's a house for t' gentry."
"Well, then, t' gentry might clean it up an' put decent furnishin's into 't," said Thyrza defiantly. "Not a bit o' paperin' doon anywhere—juist two three rooms colour-washed, as yo' med do 'em at t' workhouse. An' that big hole in t' dinin'-room ceilin', juist as 'twas—and such shabby sticks o' things upstairs an' down as I nivver see! I'll have a good sight better when I get married, I know!"
Contempt ran sharply through the girl's tone.
As she ceased speaking a step was heard in the corridor. Thyrza leapt to the ground, Mrs. Dixon picked up her brush and duster, and Dixon resumed his tending of the fire.
A man in a dripping overcoat and leggings pushed his way rapidly through the cases, looking round him with an air of worried authority.
"I don't call that much of a fire, Dixon."
"I've been at it, sir, for near an hour."
"You've got some damp wood. What about the drawing-room?"
He threw open a door on the right. The others followed him in.