four o'clock, was the meal which
answered to our tea. Bishops do not often drink tea with women of this
class, but this was a peculiar Bishop, and the woman to whom he sent
this message was his own foster-sister.

"Truly, and I shall be glad to see him," says the Grandmother; and on
they go out of the west door.

The carpets which were spread for the Countess have been rolled away,
and our three humble friends pick their steps as best they may among the
dirt-heaps, occasionally slipping into a puddle--I am afraid Avice now
and then walks into it deliberately for the fun of the splash!--and
following the road taken by the Countess as far as the Bull Gate, they
then turn to the left, leaving the frowning Castle on their right, and
begin to descend the steep slope well named Steephill.

They have not gone many yards when two people overtake them--a man and a
woman. The man stops to speak: the woman marches on with her arms
folded and her head in the air, as if they were invisible.

"Good morrow, Dan," says the old lady.

"Good morrow, Mother," answers Dan.

"What's the matter with Filomena?"

"A touch of the old complaint, that's all," answers Dan drily. "We'd a
few words o' th' road a-coming--leastwise she had, for she got it pretty
much to herself--and for th' next twelve hours or so she'll not be able
to see anybody under a squire."

"Is she often like that, Dan?"

"Well, it doesn't come more days than seven i' th' week."

"Why, you don't mean to say it's so every day?" said Agnes, the younger
woman of our trio.

Dan shook his head. "Happen there's an odd un now and then as gets let
off," said he. "But I must after her, or there'll be more hot water.
And it comes to table boilin', I can tell you. Good morrow!"

Dan runs rather heavily after his incensed spouse, and our friends
continue to pick their way down Steephill. For rather more than half
the way they go, and when just past the Church of Saint Lawrence, they
turn into a narrow street on the left, and in a few yards more they are
at home.

Home is one of the smallest houses you ever saw. It has only two rooms,
one above the other; but they are a fair size, being about twenty-five
feet by sixteen. The upper, of course, is the bedroom; the lower one is
kitchen and parlour; and a ladder leads from one to the other. The
upper chamber holds a bed, which is like a box out of which the bottom
has been taken, filled with straw, and on that is a ha