What she would have done on that--her face was hard and promised nothing--is uncertain. Fortunately for the young man's hopes, a dull report as of a stick striking the floor in some room above reached their ears; he saw her eyes flicker, alter, grow soft. "Wait!" she said imperiously; and stooping to take one of the pipkins from the fire, she poured its contents into a wooden bowl which stood beside her on the table. She added a horn-spoon and a pinch of salt, fetched a slice of coarse bread from a cupboard in one of the dressers, and taking all in skilled steady hands, hands childishly small, though brown as nuts, she disappeared through the door of the staircase. He waited, looking about the room, and at this, and at that, with a new interest. He took up the book which lay on the settle: it was a learned volume, part of the works of Paracelsus, with strange figures and diagrams interwoven with the crabbed Latin text. A passage which he deciphered, abashed him by its profundity, and he laid the book down, and went from one to another of the black-framed engravings; from these to an oval piece in coarse Limoges enamel, which hung over the little shelf of books. At length he heard a step descending from the upper floors, and presently she appeared in the doorway. "My mother will see you," she said, her tone as ungracious as her look. "But you will say nothing of lodging here, if it please you. Do you hear?" she added, her voice rising to a more imperious note. He nodded. She turned on the lowest step. "She is bed-ridden," she muttered, as if she felt the need of explanation. "She is not to be disturbed with house matters, or who comes or goes. You understand that, do you?" He nodded, with a mental reservation, and followed her up the confined staircase. Turning sharply at the head of the first flight he saw before him a long narrow passage, lighted by a window that looked to the back. On the left of the passage which led to a second set of stairs, were two doors, one near the head of the lower flight, the other at the foot of the second. She led him past both--they were closed--and up the second stairs and into a room under the tiles, a room of good size but with a roof which sloped in unexpected places.