this season of
the year."

The old gentleman had been roused agreeably by the presence of this
attentive and well-informed young man, as was evident by the care
with which he finished the last words in his sentences, and his slight
exaggeration in the number of trucks on the trains. Indeed, the chief
burden of the talk fell upon him, and he sustained it to-night in a
manner which caused his sons to look at him admiringly now and then; for
they felt shy of Denham, and were glad not to have to talk themselves.
The store of information about the present and past of this particular
corner of Lincolnshire which old Mr. Datchet produced really surprised
his children, for though they knew of its existence, they had forgotten
its extent, as they might have forgotten the amount of family plate
stored in the plate-chest, until some rare celebration brought it forth.

After dinner, parish business took the Rector to his study, and Mary
proposed that they should sit in the kitchen.

"It's not the kitchen really," Elizabeth hastened to explain to her
guest, "but we call it so--"

"It's the nicest room in the house," said Edward.

"It's got the old rests by the side of the fireplace, where the men
hung their guns," said Elizabeth, leading the way, with a tall brass
candlestick in her hand, down a passage. "Show Mr. Denham the steps,
Christopher.... When the Ecclesiastical Commissioners were here two
years ago they said this was the most interesting part of the house.
These narrow bricks prove that it is five hundred years old--five
hundred years, I think--they may have said six." She, too, felt
an impulse to exaggerate the age of the bricks, as her father had
exaggerated the number of trucks. A big lamp hung down from the center
of the ceiling and, together with a fine log fire, illuminated a large
and lofty room, with rafters running from wall to wall, a floor of red
tiles, and a substantial fireplace built up of those narrow red
bricks which were said to be five hundred years old. A few rugs and
a sprinkling of arm-chairs had made this ancient kitchen into a
sitting-room. Elizabeth, after pointing out the gun-racks, and the
hooks for smoking hams, and other evidence of incontestable age,
and explaining that Mary had had the idea of turning the room into a
sitting-room--otherwise it was used for hanging out the wash and for the
men to change in after shooting--considered that she had done her duty
as hostess, and sat down in a