“There, there, my dear, never mind,” exclaimed kindly Mrs. Busson, “it’s the first cup of tea you’ve ever spilt in my house, and I do hope it won’t be the last, by a long way.”
And as Ruth set to work to repair the damage, Andrew profited by the diversion to ask for some lettuce for his guinea-pig, and thus change the slug subject. He felt he had gone far enough in that department.
CHAPTER IV.
“IN THE ROSY SUMMER WEATHER.”
THERE was something in its irregular rambling style of architecture that gave to Gaybrook Farm, as Di expressed it, a particularly “holiday-house” look.
Nobody quite knew how old it was, but the various additions to the original building, which had been evidently made at different intervals, suggested the handiwork of several generations, and seeing that, as Mrs. Busson was fond of saying, “Busson’s great grandfather had been born there, and that Busson himself was no chicken, the farm must have been standing, well over a hundred years at any rate.”
But though so strangely irregular, it was a very substantial pile of buildings.
The red, pan-tiled roof of the main portion seemed, as it were, to run up-hill, and from under this the first floor projected, supported by heavy black beams.
It was in this part of the house, in low ceilinged rooms, with little old casement windows, and long window panes, that Mrs. Busson had arranged to bestow her visitors.
For this end of the house, “the up-hill part,” as Hubert called it, comprised all the living rooms of the family. There was the large house place below, with the roomy parlours on either side, the best bedrooms above, and the attics another storey higher.
Beneath the lower roof of the building, which was thatched and much weather-worn, were all the various farmhouse offices.