s
justified, and that we had not come to Oakford in vain. We stroked
them, some of the more adventurous sat upon them, and we echoed the
churchwarden's remark, "Yaller satin, sure enough, and the backs
gilded like a picter-frame."

I cannot but think that the housekeeper must have had friends visiting
her that day, which made our arrival inconvenient and tried her
temper--she was so very cross. She ran through a hasty account of each
room in injured tones, but she resented questions, refused
explanations, and was particularly irritable if anybody strayed from
the exact order in which she chose to marshal us through the house. A
vein of sarcasm in her remarks quite overpowered our farmers.

"Please to stand off the walls. There ain't no need to crowd up
against them in spacyous rooms like these, and the paper ain't one of
your cheap ones with a spotty pattern as can be patched or matched
anywhere. It come direct from the Indies, and the butterflies and the
dragons is as natteral as life. 'Whose picter's that in the last
room?' You should have kept with the party, young woman, and then
you'd 'ave knowed. Parties who don't keep with the party, and then
wants the information repeated, will be considered as another party,
and must pay accordingly. Next room, through the white door to the
left. Now, sir, we're a-waiting for you! All together, if you
please!"

[Illustration: "All together, if you please!"]

But in spite of the good lady, I generally managed to linger behind,
or run before, and so to look at things in my own way. Once, as she
was rehearsing the history of a certain picture, I made my way out of
the room, and catching sight of some pretty things through an open
door at the end of the passage, I went in to see what I could see.
Some others were following me when the housekeeper spied them, and
bustled up, angrily recalling us, for the room, as we found, was a
private _boudoir_, and not one of those shown to the public. In my
brief glance, however, I had seen something which made me try to get
some information out of the housekeeper, in spite of her displeasure.

"Who are those little girls in the picture by the sofa?" I asked.
"Please tell me."

"I gives all information in reference to the public rooms," replied
the housekeeper, loftily, "as in duty bound; but the private rooms is
not in my instructions."

And nothing more could I get out of her to explain the picture which
had so seized upon my fancy.