The following day, after I had presided at lunch, I set out with great joy for Rose Hill, and spent a long afternoon among the books, and though I had said, to quiet my scruples, that I would not go too often, yet there did not seem a day of the days following that I could bear to keep away. It changed all the face of my daily life for me, to look forward to those quiet hours. As Mary O'Connor had said, no one disturbed me. I went in by the garden and up the rose-wreathed steps, and found the door standing invitingly open every day. Then at four Mary would send me in a little tea-tray, which I was usually glad enough to see after my climb up the hilly road, and my rest among the books; and then after tea I would read again till it was time to go home. But after a good many days spent in sipping the honey of the books, an eagerness came on me to arrange them in their shelves, so I asked the pretty little English maid who brought my tea if she could fetch me a duster and a feather-brush. "Lawks, miss," she cried, "wotever for?" "I'm going to arrange the books, Jane," said I. I never could bring myself to call her "Jenkins", by which name she had been known in her other situations, she told me, and Mary O'Connor was in sympathy with me on this one point, though she could seldom be accused of over-consideration to her subordinates. "If I was in a place," Mary said, "and they called me 'O'Connor', I'd ask them if it was a dog they were spakin' to, and take my box and walk." Jane was so perturbed by my desire for activity that she carried my request to Mary herself, who came hurrying in. "That omadhaun of a girl's after comin' to me with a story about your wantin' a feather-whisk and a duster, Miss Hilda. I told her no Brandon could want the like. They haven't got their hearin' right, them cratures; often an' often when I do send them to turn out the upper bedrooms, 'tis in the drawin'-room, where the painter-men are workin', I'll find them. And then they'll say they didn't understand me rightly. 'The shoe's on the wrong foot, my girl,' says I. 'If it was myself didn't understand your outlandish up-and-down curlykews of a way of spakin', there'd be nothin' wonderful in it'." "But I do really want the feather-brush and duster, and a big apron, if you will lend them to me, Mary. I do so want to get those books in order." "You'll be fallin' down an' breakin' your neck," said Mary doubtfully. "I'll do nothing of the kind," I assured her. "I'll take my time about it, and set up all the books by degrees. I shall love to do it, and when the General comes home he'll think you and your handmaidens have been so clever, Mary." "You won't tire yourself, honey?" "I'll leave off the minute I'm tired. I'll promise you that, Mary," cried I, all eagerness to begin.