He had married well, and was a rich man, and all he desired now was that his father and mother should make their home near him, share his prosperity, and see their grand-children. "And so, ma'am, we are going as soon as ever we can let the house and sell our bits of furniture. The house we could get rid of fast enough, but no one wants the furniture, and my husband he is loth to let it go for what the brokers offer." "What do they offer?" asked Dolly. "For every stick and stool in the house thirty shillings." "And how much do you think they ought to give?" asked Dolly. "Why my master he says as how we ought not to take less nor five pound for the furniture, and two pound for the cropped garden and fowl-house, and sty and woodshed, all of which he builded with his own hands; but there's a sight of counting in that money, and people like us have all their beds and chairs and tables, and I wish he'd take the dealer's offer and be done with it, for I am longing to see my boy once more." Dolly turned her face aside, and looked at the fire. "What is the rent of this place?" she inquired. "Four pound eleven a year, ma'am; and though that do sound high, still it is a cheap place at the money, for there's a fine big garden and that orchard you see, and it needn't stand empty an hour if only my master would give in about the furniture." "How many rooms have you?" Dolly asked. "We have as good as four upstair; but two of them are open like on the stairs. We use them for storing things, and there is this house; we call the front room 'the house' in these parts, ma'am, and the back place, and another back place where the stairs lead out, and--" "Might I see it?" Dolly entreated, "I should like to see it so much." "You'll excuse the place being in a bit of a muddle?" answered the other, as she led the way about her small territory. "Good Heavens! if this is a muddle, what must apple-pie order be?" thought Mrs. Mortomley, as she looked at the well-scrubbed stairs, at the snow-white boards, at the chest of drawers bees-waxed till she saw her own reflection in them better than in the looking-glass, off which half the quicksilver had peeled; at the patch-work counterpane, which, though probably half a century old, still shone forth resplendent with red and yellow and green, and all the colours of the rainbow. "I do not care to see the garden," said Dolly when they were once more in the back place; "and I have seen the orchard. I will take the house off your hands, and your furniture, and your crops, at your own price; I have not so much money with me, but I will leave you what I have in my purse, and I will send down again any day you name, in order to pay you the balance still owing and to take possession." "You, ma'am!" repeated the woman.