Reynold did not understand her reluctance to go in. In truth she was uneasy at the thought of the long evening which her uncle and he must spend in the same room. Mr. Hayes had come down in a dangerous mood that morning, not showing any special remembrance of Harding's offence of the night before, but seeming impartially displeased with everything and everybody. If ill-temper were actual fire, his conversation would have been all snaps and flashes like a fifth of November. Letters absorbed his attention at breakfast, but Barbara perceived that they only made him crosser than before. Happily, however, since a storm of rain hindered the morning's church-going, he went to his study to write his answers, and was seen no more till lunch-time, after which the weather cleared, and the young people walked off together to hear about the Amalekites. Reynold had no idea how anxiously Barbara had been sheltering him all day under her little wing, but now the sun was down, there was no help for it, they must go in and face the worst. She had paused and looked up at him as if she were about to say something before they left the garden, but nothing came except the little sigh which he had heard. Even when they went in, fate seemed a little to postpone the evil moment. Harding, coming down-stairs, saw a light shining through the door of a small room--the book-room, as it was sometimes called. A glance as he passed showed Barbara, with an arm raised above her head, taking a volume from the shelf. "Can I help you?" he asked, pausing in the doorway. "Oh, thank you, but I think this is right." She examined the title-page. The window shutters were closed, the room was dusky with its lining of old brown leather bindings, and Barbara's candle was just a glow-worm glimmer of brightness in it. "You might put those others back for me if you would. I can manage to take them down, but it isn't so easy to put them up again." Tall Reynold rendered the required service quickly enough, while she laid the book she had chosen with some others already on the table, and began to dust them. It was an old-fashioned writing-table, with a multitude of little brass-handled drawers. The young man took hold of one of these brass handles, and noticed its rather elaborate workmanship. "Look inside," said the girl, as she laid her duster down. The drawer was full of yellowing papers, old bills, and miscellaneous scraps of various kinds. She pulled out a few, and they turned them over in the gleam of candle-light. "Butcher, Christmas, 1811," said Barbara, "and here is a glazier's bill. What have you got?" "To sinking and bricking new well, 32 ft. deep," Reynold replied. "It is in 1816. To making new pump, 38 ft. long." "Why, that must be the old pump by the stables," said Barbara. "Look at this receipt, 'for work Don accorden to Bill?'" "There seem to be plenty of them. Are the other drawers full too?" "Yes, I think so. You had better take one as a souvenir."