The reader may ask, Why? and may say, Was it like her--so gay, so joyous, so thoughtless, so careless of show, ceremony, or parade? Nevertheless it was so. She had laid it all out. She had even condescended to a little trickery. Although, at that season of the year, there was light enough remaining in the sky, at a quarter past eight, when they began their dinner, to proceed with the first course at least with no aid but from the beams of heaven, yet she had ordered two windows at the side to be shut up, leaving unclosed only the large oriel window at the end, filled with deep-coloured stained glass. Over the table, which looked almost like a speck in the centre of the great hall, hung an old-fashioned but richly-ornamented silver chandelier, with eight branches lighted; but yet the beams only illumined the table; and a sort of uncertain twilight pervaded the remoter parts of the hall, except where a sideboard loaded with ancient plate appeared, lighted by several old candlesticks. Lady Anne had so contrived it that, in coming from the great drawing-room to the hall, the little party passed through several other rooms but faintly lighted; and in so doing, Lady Anne managed that Maria should occupy the middle place, between her and Lady Fleetwood. As they entered the hall, too, she looked up in her young friend's face, while her eyes ran over the fine old chamber--which, with its lights in the centre, its mysterious gloom at the end, the richly-covered table and sideboard, the number of servants in their handsome liveries, the large antique chandelier of silver and its silver chain, the tall stained glass oriel at the end, and the evening light faintly streaming through, only just sufficiently to throw long lines of yellow, purple, blue, and even red, upon the floor and ceiling, and those three graceful women entering arm-in-arm--looked more like some painter's dream of the ancient time than anything that is seen in our own stiff and tinselled days. "What a beautiful hall!" exclaimed Lady Fleetwood, looking round. "Isn't it cold?" And at the same moment her foot passed from the rim of marble which ran round the whole chamber, and took the first step on the ocean of Turkey carpet with which seven-eighths of the floor was covered. "I think not," answered Lady Anne: "at all events, I shall try, dear Lady Fleetwood, to keep it warm and gay while I am here. Isn't it a fine hall, Maria?" "It is indeed," replied Maria: "the span of the vault is so great, it makes me feel as if I were in Westminster Hall."