"I suppose so." No look of pleasure lighted up the dull plain features; and Mrs. Brutt was deciding that reports of Nurse Morris's good looks were pure romance. "You'd like to come in," Mrs. Morris said, and she led the way into the long low sitting-room. Jane followed, and Winnie stood up, having thrown aside her shawl. "Are these your daughters?" Katherine glanced from the freckled Jane to the delicately fair Winnie. "Yes." "I hope Farmer Paine is well." "He's quite well." Katherine's conversational powers, never great, were at an end. Doris, still in a retiring mood, had retreated to a window. Mrs. Brutt saw her opportunity, and came forward. "What a perfectly charming spot this must be, when the sun shines! One always needs sunshine, doesn't one?—especially in the country." She beamed round upon them all. "Dear me, what glorious sunsets you must see from this window!" "Looks east," stolidly remarked Mrs. Morris. "Ah—sunrises, I should have said. And of course you are all up by sunrise. So different, farm-life from town-life, isn't it? Six o'clock in winter; four o'clock in summer. So deliciously primitive! So patriarchal! The Simple Life, in fact. Exactly what I should love to do myself." She breakfasted between half-past nine and ten; but that was a detail. Katherine, relieved to have the burden of talk-making lifted from her shoulders, sat near in her attitude of gentle reserve, chiming in with an occasional murmur of assent. Mrs. Brutt was delighted to take the lead. "You seem so out of the world here! So forgetting and forgot. A perfect Arcadia. Plenty of time for thought and study." "Beastly dull," muttered Jane. For once the elder girl was under a curb; the curb of Miss Stirling's presence. She might snap her fingers at the Squire behind his back; but she could not do so at the Squire's niece. Katherine, despite shyness and humility, had it in her to abash others; and with no apparent effort on her part, but simply because she meant it, Jane was abashed. Mrs. Brutt felt round for a fresh topic. "Dear me, what a charming old cabinet!" She started up. "I really must look at it more closely. How interesting! Real old oak!—and such exquisite carving! Quite a treasure. At the very least two hundred years old, I should say." "It isn't oak." "Not oak!" Mrs. Brutt seemed rather taken aback. "But really I think you must be mistaken. Such a genuine piece of old work. It must have been in the family from time immemorial." Mrs. Morris said "Yes" to this, perhaps misunderstanding. She added, "I saw it made, thirty years ago." "Really! Not more than thirty years! Extraordinary! But one comes across such wonderfully clever imitations in these days. Quite deceptive." Mrs. Brutt quitted rather hastily the immemorial cabinet, moving towards Winnie. "Your daughter looks very delicate. Not lungs, I hope." "Rheumatism." Mrs. Morris seemed bent on wasting no needless words.