Mrs. Dew had the extremely deferent manner of the well-trained servant who has "lived in good families." To Mr. Wycherly this manner was immensely soothing, coming as it did after his long experience of the dictatorial and somewhat familiar bearing of the Scottish servants at Remote. Mrs. Dew "knew her place" and kept to it rigidly, and Edmund found her rather unapproachable. Anything like reserve in his intercourse with his fellow-creatures was abhorrent to Edmund, and he pursued Mrs. Dew with questions as to her past, her present, and her future, getting, however, but small satisfaction for his pains. "Have you any children, Mrs. Dew?" he demanded one day, when he had sought her in the kitchen for social purposes. "No, sir, not of my own." "Any grandchildren?" "Certainly not, sir." "No one belonging to you at all?" "Of course, sir, I ’ave my relations, same as other folks." "What sort of relations?" "Well, for one, sir, I have a niece." "Big or little?" "About your own size, sir, though, I daresay, she’s a bit older." "Where does she live?" "With me, sir, when she isn’t at school. She’s an orphan." "Oh, like us. Where is she now?" "Here, in Oxford." "What’s her name?" "Jane-Anne, sir; but if I may say so, I don’t think the kitchen’s the proper place for a young gentleman like you." "When shall I see Jane-Anne?" "I don’t suppose as you’ll see her at all, sir, your paths in life being, so to speak, different." Edmund sighed. "I wish you were a more telling sort of person, Mrs. Dew," he said sadly. "If you like to ask me any questions, you’ll soon see what a lot I’d tell you." "I hope I know my place better, sir!" Mrs. Dew remarked primly. That afternoon he gave it up as a bad job. Edmund did not forget his grudge against Miss Selina Brooks. By some curious mental process of unreasoning he traced Mr. Wycherly’s sudden faintness, that had frightened them so much, to that good lady’s letter about the curtainless windows. She had worried his Guardie, and therefore she was his enemy. It did not in the least affect Edmund’s opinion of her that Mr. Wycherly wrote a most courteous note thanking her for hers. Edmund intended to be even with Miss Selina Brooks, but he bided his time. The attics in Holywell were particularly large and splendid. There were only two, and they occupied the whole of the top floor, while each was reached by a separate staircase, and had no communication with the other. In all, there were five different sets of stairs in that old house. One attic was dedicated to the reception of empty boxes; but the other—which possessed a heavenly little crooked room opening out of it, in that third gable which boasted the small square window looking sideways down the street—Mr. Wycherly had given to the boys for their very own play-room.