Part of the way is all through woods; then after that comes a heathy bit, and then a clear bit of common, and then you go up for a while with trees thick at one side of the road and at the other a beautiful sort of stretching-to-the-sky view. Then you turn sharp down a lane, and at a corner where another lane—quite a short one—leads on to a heath again, is the Farm.
We got out at the gate. There's no drive to the front of the house, and this first time Mrs. Parsley wouldn't have thought it 'manners' to meet us in the stable-yard. She was standing at the gate. I saw in a minute she was nice. She had a pleasant face, not too smiley, and no make up about it.
'I am pleased to see you, ma'am,' she said, 'and Master Warwick too, and I'm so glad it's a fine day. Real May weather, isn't it, ma'am?'
'Yes, indeed,' said mums. 'We couldn't see your pretty home to greater advantage, Mrs. Parsley.'
Then Mrs. Parsley smiled more than she had done yet.
'I can't deny, ma'am, that it's a sweet spot,' she said, 'and a healthy. It's coldish in winter, it's true, but then it's a cold that you don't feel in the same piercing way as when it's damp. The air's that bracing about here, ma'am.'
'So they tell me,' said mother. 'And that's just what we're looking for.' Then she went on to tell about the whooping-cough, and though Cousin Dorothea had written about it already, Mrs. Parsley seemed as interested as could be. People like that—I mean people you can't call gentlemen and ladies, though they're not poor, and regular poor people, too—do love talking about illnesses—other people's as well as their own. And she had a lot of questions to ask about 'Miss Dorothea' too. She 'did hope as she'd come down to Mossmoor some day.'
All this time we were going towards the house. But it was rather a slow business, doing so much talking by the way, and I was in a fidget to see the rooms and find out if they'd do. There was no hall or passage; we went straight into a large kitchen, a very large one. You didn't see at first how big it was, because just round the door—to keep out the draught, I suppose—there was a fixed wooden screen, like what you see in lots of cottages. I was a little surprised that there was no hall, for, outside, the house looked really rather grand; it might have been called 'Mossmoor Grange,' for it was built of nice dull red old bricks and the windows were very pretty—out-jutting, you know, and with tiny panes. But once you were well inside the kitchen you couldn't have wished it any different. It was so jolly; not a bit messy, you know, as if plates and dishes were washed there, or potatoes peeled, or anything like that, for there was a good-sized back kitchen where all that was done. The floor was tiled, with good thick rugs here and there, and there was a regular old grandfather's clock and bright brass pans and things on the wall.
I wondered at first if this could be the kitchen we were to have as a sitting-room. But Mrs. Parsley soon explained.
'Won't you sit down and rest a bit, ma'am,' she said, 'before I show you the rooms?'