emises she reigns supreme to this day.

From her we learned that Mr. and Mrs. Arkwright, who had gone away for a
parson's fortnight, were still from home. We had no lack of welcome,
however.

It seems strange enough to speak of a fire as comfortable in July. And
yet I well remember that the heavy dew and evening breeze was almost
chilly after sunset, and a sort of vault-like feeling about the rooms,
which had been for a week or more unused, made us offer no resistance
when Keziah began to light a fire. While she was doing so Eleanor
exclaimed, "Let's go and warm ourselves in the kitchen."

Any idea of comfort connected with a kitchen was quite new to me, but I
followed Eleanor, and made my first acquaintance with the old room where
we have spent so many happy hours.

We found the door shut; much, it seemed, to Eleanor's astonishment. But
the reason was soon evident. As our footsteps sounded on the stone
passage there arose from behind the kitchen door an utterly
indescribable din of howling, yowling, squealing, scratching, and
barking.

"It's the dear boys!" said Eleanor, and she ran to open the door. For a
moment I thought of her brothers (who must, obviously, be maniacs!), but
I soon discovered that the "dear boys" were the dogs of the
establishment, who were at once let loose upon us _en masse_. I have a
faint remembrance of Eleanor and a brown retriever falling into each
other's arms with cries of delight; but I was a good deal absorbed by
the care of my own small person, under the heavy onslaught of dogs big
and little. I was licked copiously from chin to forehead by the more
impetuous, and smelt threateningly at the calves of my legs by the more
cautious of the pack.

They were subsiding a little, when Eleanor said, "Oh, cook, why did you
shut them up? Why didn't you let them come and meet us?"

"And how was I to know who it was at the door, Miss Eleanor?" replied an
elderly, stern-looking female, who, in her time, ruled us all with a rod
of iron, the dogs included. "Dear knows it's not that I want them in the
kitchen. The way them dogs behaves, Miss Eleanor, is _scandilus_."

"Dear boys!" murmured Eleanor; on which all the dogs, who were settling
down to sleep on the hearth, wagged their tails, and threatened to move.

"Much good it is me cleaning," cook continued, "when that great big
brown beast of yours goes roaming about every night in the shrubberies,
and comes in with his feet all over my clean fl