He carried out his plan. Benjamin Franklin, tempted by the fee offered, and relying no doubt upon the gloomy weather as a barrier against discovery, made a bright fire upon one of the astonished hearths, and brought over a flask of native wine, a little loaf, and some fine grapes. Ford arranged these on a spindle-legged table, and brought forward an old tapestried arm-chair for Katharine. Then while she sat sipping her wine and drying her shoes before the crackling flame, he went gravely round the room, glass in hand, pausing before each portrait to bow ceremoniously and drink to its health and long life--probably in a pictorial sense. When he had finished the circuit, "Here's to you all, charming vanished ladies of the past," he said; "may you each have every honor in the picturesque, powdered, unorthographic age to which you belong, and never by any possibility step over into ours!" "That last touch has spoiled the whole," said the lady in the tapestried chair. But Ford declared that an expression in Madame Necker's blue eye approved his words. He now came back to the hearth. "This will never do," he said. "The shoes are not drying; you must take them off." And with that he knelt down and began to unbutton them. But Katharine, agreeing to obey orders, finished the task herself. The old custodian, who had been standing in the doorway laughing at Ford's portrait pantomime, now saw an opportunity to make himself useful; he came forward, took one of the shoes, put it upon his hand, and, kneeling down, held it close to the flame. The shoes were little boots of dark cloth like the habit, slender, dainty, and made with thin soles; they were for riding, not walking. Ford brought forward a second arm-chair and sat down. "The old room looks really cheerful," he said. "The portraits are beginning to thaw, presently we shall see them smile." Katharine too was smiling. She was also blushing a little. The blush and slight embarrassment made her look like a school-girl. "Where shall we go for the winter?" said Ford. "I can give you one more winter over here, and then I must go home and get to work again. And as we have so little foreign time left, I suggest that we lose none of it, and begin our married life at once. Don't be alarmed; he does not understand a word of English. Shall we say, then, next week?" "No." "Are you waiting to know me better? Take me, and make me better." "What are your principal faults--I mean besides those I already know?" she said, shielding her face from the heat of the fire with her riding gauntlets. "I have very few. I like my own way; but it is always a good way. My opinions are rather decided ones; but would you like an undecided man? I do not enjoy general society, but I am extremely fond of the particular. I think that is all." "And your obstinacy?" "Only firmness." "You are narrow, prejudiced; you do not believe in progress of any kind. You would keep women down with an iron hand." "A velvet one."