The Prisoner

								

the back door through the rolling field, where at last a fringe of
feathery yellow made the horizon line.
"What's at the end of the field, Farvie?" Lydia asked.
"The river," said he. "Nothing but the river."
"I feel," said she, "as if we were on an island surrounded by
jumping-off places: the bushes in front, the lilac hedge on the west,
the brick wall on the east, the river at the end. Come, let's go back.
We haven't seen the other two rooms."
These were the northeast room, a library in the former time, in a dim,
pink paper with garlands, and the southeast sitting-room, in a modern
yet conforming paper of dull blue and grey.
"The hall is grey," said Lydia. "Do you notice? How well they've kept
the papers. There isn't a stain."
"Maiden ladies," said the colonel, with a sigh. "Nothing but two maiden
ladies for so long."
"Don't draw long breaths, Farvie," said Lydia. "Anne and I are maiden
ladies. You wouldn't breathe over us. We should feel terribly if you
did."
"I was thinking how still the house had been," said he. "It used to
be--ah, well! well!"
"They grew old here, didn't they?" said Anne, her mind taking the maiden
ladies into its hospitable shelter.
"They were old when they came." He was trying to put on a brisker air to
match these two runners with hope for their torch. "Old as I am now. If
their poor little property had lasted we should have had hard work to
pry them out. We should have had to let 'em potter along here. But they
seem to like their nephew, and certainly he's got money enough."
"They adore him," said Lydia, who had never seen them or the nephew.
"And they're lying in gold beds at this minute eating silver cheese off
an emerald plate and hearing the nightingales singing and saying to each
other, 'Oh, my! I wish it was morning so we could get up and put on
our pan-velvet dresses and new gold shoes.'"
This effective picture Anne and the colonel received with a perfect
gravity, not really seeing it with the mind's eye. Lydia's habit of
speech demanded these isolating calms.
"I think," said Anne, "we'd better be getting to the Inn. We sha'n't
find any supper. Lydia, which bag did you pack our nighties in?"
Lydia picked out the bag, carolling, as she did so, in high bright
notes, and then remembered that she had to put on her hat. Anne had
already adjusted hers with a careful nicety.
"You know where the Inn is, don't you, Farvie?" Lydia was asking, as
they stood on the stone step, after Anne had locked the door, and gazed
about them in another of their according trances.
He smiled at them, and his eyes lighted for the first time. The smile
showed possibilities the girls had proven through their growing up
years, of humour and childish fooling.
"Why, yes," said he, "it was here when I was born."
They went down the curving driveway into the street which the two girls
presently found to be the state street of the town. The houses, each
with abundant grounds, had all a formal opulence due chiefly to the