As they entered the large square hall with Fuss and Fury frolicking round them, a tall respectable-looking woman came forward to meet them.
"I suppose my sister is in the library, Mitchell?" asked Miss Harford, quickly.
"Yes, ma'am. Parker has just taken in the tea."
"Then will you please give this young lady some: take her into my room, and make her comfortable. I must ask you to excuse me for a short time, Miss Ward, as I have to talk over one or two things with my sister; but Mitchell will look after you."
"Oh, please do not trouble about me!" returned Waveney; and then she followed Mitchell down a long passage, full of beautiful plants, to a pleasant sitting-room with a deep bay window overlooking the lawn with the sundial; the peacock was strutting across the grass with the mincing, ambling gait peculiar to that bird, the peahen following him more meekly.
Through green trellised arches one looked on a tennis lawn, and beyond that was a large red brick cottage with a porch. When Mitchell brought in the tea-tray, Waveney asked her who lived there. The woman looked a little amused at the question.
"No one lives there, ma'am," she answered, civilly. "My mistresses built it, for their winter evening entertainments. There is only one room, with a sort of kitchen behind it. It is always called the Porch House."
Waveney longed to ask some more questions, but Mitchell had already retired, so she sat down and enjoyed her tea.
How happy she could be in this lovely place if only Mollie were with her! And then she thought of the fifty pounds a year. After all, Erpingham was not so far away. Perhaps they would let her go home once a week. If she could only have her Sunday afternoons and evenings to herself! And then her heart began to beat quickly. How delicious that would be! How Mollie and she would talk! And after tea they would sing their old hymns, and then they would all go to church together, and her father and Noel would walk to the station to see her off. And then she wondered if she should mind the long walk across the common; it would be rather lonely, she thought, on a dark winter's evening, and perhaps Miss Harford would not approve of it.
While Waveney indulged in these surmises and cogitations, Miss Harford had walked briskly across the inner hall, and, tapping lightly at a door, opened it and entered a beautiful long room fitted up as a library. It had a grand oriel window, with a cushioned seat, and a tiny inner room like a recess, with a glass door leading to the lawn with the cedar-tree.