"A little better this evening, sir, I believe; but he has again been off his head with fever, and Dr. Macferraty had, after all, to be called in," replied the man. "My lady is pretty nearly beside herself too." "Have the police been called in yet?" "No, sir; no chance of it; my lord and my lady won't have it done." "It appears to be an old-fashioned place, Sanders," remarked Mr. Ravensworth, when they had reached the house. "It's the most awkward turn-about place inside, sir, you ever saw; nothing but passages. But my lord never lives here; he only pays it promiscuous visits now and then, and brings down no servants with him. He was kept prisoner here, as may be said, through jamming his knee in a gateway; and then my lady came down, and we are putting up with all sorts of inconveniences." "Who lives here in general?" "Two old retainers of the Level family, sir: both of 'em sights to look upon; she especially. She dresses up like an old picture." Waiting within the doorway to receive Mr. Ravensworth was Mrs. Edwards. He could not take his eyes from her. He had never seen one like her in real life, and Sanders's words, "dresses up like an old picture," recurred to him. He had thought this style of dress completely gone out of date, _except_ in pictures; and here it was before him, worn by a living woman! She dropped him a stately curtsey, that would have served for the prelude to a Court minuet in the palmy days of Queen Charlotte. "Sir, you are the gentleman expected by my lady?" "Yes--Mr. Ravensworth." "I'll show you in myself, sir." Taking up a candle from a marble slab--there was no other light to be seen--she conducted him through the passage, and, turning down another which stood at right angles with it, halted at the door of a room. In answer to a question from Mr. Ravensworth, she said his lordship was much better within the last hour--quite himself again. "What would you be pleased to take, sir?" she added. "I will order it to be brought in to you." "I require nothing, thank you." But quite a housekeeper of the old school, and essentially hospitable, she would not take a refusal. "I hope you will, sir: tea--or coffee--or supper----?" "A little coffee, then." She dropped another of her ceremonious curtseys, and threw open the door. "The gentleman you expected, my lady." It was another long, bare room, but not the one already mentioned. Singularly bare and empty it looked to-night. A large fire burned in the grate, halfway down the room, and in an easy-chair before it reclined Lady Level--asleep. Two wax-candles stood on the high carved mantelpiece, and the large oak table behind Lady Level was dark with age. Everything about the room was dreary, excepting the fire, the lights, and the sleeper.