So the time went on until May was over, and Mrs Hody announced that she would require Mrs Llewellyn’s bedrooms for two gentlemen on the following day. The task of preparing them was confided to Nell. There was no rough work to be done--Mrs Llewellyn’s rooms being always kept in spick-and-span order--but the linen sheets had to be taken out of the old walnut-wood press, where they had lain for the last year between sprigs of sweet lavender, and aired before the kitchen fire, and the creases ironed out before they were put upon the beds. Then the fair white toilet-covers, trimmed with lace made by the farmer’s great-grandmother, were spread upon the dressing-tables and chest of drawers, and every speck of dust flicked off the polished furniture. Clean lace curtains were hung before the windows, about which clambered the honeysuckles and roses, which poor Nell used to see in her London dreams, and before which lay the beds of flowers which adorned the side of the farmhouse. These two rooms, as has been said before, lay apart from the rest of the domain, and opened into the bricked passage at the back of the parlour. They had a little private entrance of their own, and, when they were occupied, the lodgers were allowed to come in and out as they chose. This was absolutely necessary with the guests of Sir Archibald Bowmant, as the revelries of Usk Hall were kept up so late, that the Llewellyns could not possibly have sat up for them. So, in that primitive place, where latch-keys were unknown and robbery was unheard of, the simple farmers left their side-door unfastened, and scarcely ever set eyes on their lodgers. When the two sleeping chambers were clad in their white adornments, Nell fancied they looked too cold and colourless, so she fetched some old-fashioned vases of blue china from her mother’s store closet, and filled them with roses and lilies, overshadowed by graceful branches of crimson fuchsias and tufts of sword grass. She placed one upon each toilet-table, and heaved a sigh to see how pure and sweet and clean the rooms looked, like an unstained conscience in the bosom of a child. ‘Nell! Nell!’ called her mother, from the parlour, ‘open the side-door, there’s a good lass. There’s one of the Hall gardeners bringing over the gentlemen’s luggage.’ Nell did as she was desired, and encountered a man with some portmanteaus, and bags and plaids in a wheelbarrow standing outside the door. ‘These are the things, miss, of the gents as is to sleep here,’ he said. ‘All right. Bring them in,’ was the reply. The man brought the articles in, one by one, on his shoulders, and heaped them all down in the first room. ‘But stay!’ exclaimed Nell, ‘some must go in the other room. What are the gentlemen’s names?’ ‘Sure, I don’t know, miss. All I was told was to bring the luggage over here.’