'If you don't yet you will know. But come down from your perch--the dining-room door will not be open again for some time--and I will show you about the rooms upstairs. This is a larger house than Mrs. Petherwin's, as you see. Just come and look at the drawing-rooms.' Wishing much to get rid of Menlove, yet fearing to offend her, Picotee followed upstairs. Dinner was almost over by this time, and when they entered the front drawing-room a young man-servant and maid were there rekindling the lights. 'Now let's have a game of cat-and-mice,' said the maid-servant cheerily. 'There's plenty of time before they come up.' 'Agreed,' said Menlove promptly. 'You will play, will you not, Miss Chickerel?' 'No, indeed,' said Picotee, aghast. 'Never mind, then; you look on.' Away then ran the housemaid and Menlove, and the young footman started at their heels. Round the room, over the furniture, under the furniture, through the furniture, out of one window, along the balcony, in at another window, again round the room--so they glided with the swiftness of swallows and the noiselessness of ghosts. Then the housemaid drew a jew's-harp from her pocket, and struck up a lively waltz sotto voce. The footman seized Menlove, who appeared nothing loth, and began spinning gently round the room with her, to the time of the fascinating measure 'Which fashion hails, from countesses to queens, And maids and valets dance behind the scenes.' Picotee, who had been accustomed to unceiled country cottages all her life, wherein the scamper of a mouse is heard distinctly from floor to floor, exclaimed in a terrified whisper, at viewing all this, 'They'll hear you underneath, they'll hear you, and we shall all be ruined!' 'Not at all,' came from the cautious dancers. 'These are some of the best built houses in London--double floors, filled in with material that will deaden any row you like to make, and we make none. But come and have a turn yourself, Miss Chickerel.' The young man relinquished Menlove, and on the spur of the moment seized Picotee. Picotee flounced away from him in indignation, backing into a corner with ruffled feathers, like a pullet trying to appear a hen. 'How dare you touch me!' she said, with rounded eyes. 'I'll tell somebody downstairs of you, who'll soon see about it!' 'What a baby; she'll tell her father.' 'No I shan't; somebody you are all afraid of, that's who I'll tell.' 'Nonsense,' said Menlove; 'he meant no harm.'