'By-and-by, ma'am?' Mrs. Olney answered. 'Oh, yes.'
'Then I can have it here.'
'Oh, yes, if you please to follow me, ma'am.' And she held the door open.
Julia shrugged her shoulders, and, contesting the matter no further, followed the good woman along a corridor and through a door which shut off a second and shorter passage. From this three doors opened, apparently into as many apartments. Mrs. Olney threw one wide and ushered her into a room damp-smelling, and hung with drab, but of good size and otherwise comfortable. The windows looked over a neglected Dutch garden, which was so rankly overgrown that the box hedges scarce rose above the wilderness of parterres. Beyond this, and divided from it by a deep-sunk fence, a pool fringed with sedges and marsh-weeds carried the eye to an alder thicket that closed the prospect.
Julia, in her relief on finding that the table was laid for one only, paid no heed to the outlook or to the bars that crossed the windows, but sank into a chair and mechanically ate and drank. Apprised after a while that Mrs. Olney had returned and was watching her with fatuous good-nature, she asked her if she knew at what hour she was to leave.
'To leave?' said the housekeeper, whose almost invariable custom it was to repeat the last words addressed to her. 'Oh, yes, to leave. Of course.'
'But at what time?' Julia asked, wondering whether the woman was as dull as she seemed.
'Yes, at what time?' Then after a pause and with a phenomenal effort, 'I will go and see--if you please.'
She returned presently. 'There are no horses,' she said. 'When they are ready the gentleman will let you know.'
'They have sent for some?'