OAKFORD ONCE MORE—THE SATIN CHAIRS—THE HOUSEKEEPER—THE LITTLE LADIES AGAIN—FAMILY MONUMENTS The expedition was very successful, and we all returned in safety to Dacrefield; rather, I think, to the astonishment of some of the good-wives of the village, who looked upon any one who passed the parish bounds as a traveller, and thought our jaunt to Oakford "venturesome" almost to a "tempting of Providence."
 
It is a curious study to observe what things strike different people on occasions of this kind.
 
It was not the house itself, though the building was remarkably fine (a modern erection on the site of the old "Grange"), nor the natural features of the place, though they were especially beautiful, that roused the admiration of our teachers and their scholars. Somebody said that the house was "a deal bigger than the Hall" (at Dacrefield), and one or two criticisms were passed upon the timber; but the noble park, the grand slopes, the lovely peeps of distance, the exquisite taste displayed in the grounds and gardens about the house, drew little attention from our party. Within, the succession of big rooms became confusing. One or two bits in certain pictures were pronounced by the farmers "as natteral as life;" the "stattys" rather[156] scandalized them, and the historical legends attached by the housekeeper to various pieces of furniture fell upon ears too little educated to be interested. But when we got to the big drawing-room the yellow satin chairs gave general and complete satisfaction. When old Giles said, "Here they be!" we felt that all he had told us before was 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."
 
"All together, if you please!"
"All together, if you please!"
 
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!"
 
[157]
 
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.
 
It was a very pretty painting—a modern one. Just the heads and shoulders of two little girls, one of them having her face just below that of the other, whose little arms were round her sister's neck. I knew them in an instant. There was no mistaking that look of decision in the face of the protecting little damsel, nor the wistful appealing glance in the eyes of the other. The artist had caught both most happily; and though the fair locks I had admired were uncovered, I knew my little ladies of the beaver bonnets again.
 
Having failed to learn anything about them from[158] the housekeeper, I went to old Giles and asked him the name of the gentleman to whom the place belonged.
 
"St. John," he replied.
 
"I suppose he has got children?" I continued.
 
"Only one living," said old Giles. "They do say he've buried six, most on 'em in galloping consumptions. It do stand to reason they've had all done for 'em that gold could buy, but afflictions, sir, they be as heavy on the rich man as the poor; and when a body's time be come it ain't outlandish oils nor furrin parts can cure 'em."
 
I wondered which of the quaint little ladies had died, and whether they had taken her to "furrin parts" before her death; and I thought if it were the grey-eyed little maid, how sad and helpless her little sister must be.
 
"Only one left?" I said mechanically.
 
"Ay, ay," said old Giles; "and he be pretty bad, I fancy. They've got him in furrin parts where the sun shines all along; but they do say he be wild to get back home, but that'll not be, but in his coffin, to be laid with the rest in the big vault. Ay, ay, affliction spares none, sir, nor yet death."
 
So this last of the St. John family was a boy. If the little ladies were his sisters, both must be dead; if not, I did not know who they were. I felt very angry with the housekeeper for her sulky reticence. I was also not highly pleased by her manner of treating me, for she evidently took me for one of the Sunday-school boys. I fear it was partly a shabby pride on this point which led me to "tip" her with half-a-crown on my own account when we were taking leave. In a moment she became civil to slavishness, hoped I had enjoyed myself, and[159] professed her willingness to show me anything about the place any day when there were not so "many of them school children crowging and putting a body out, sir. There's such a many common people comes, sir," she added, "I'm quite wored out, and having no need to be in............