Thisbe led the way along a broad passage and up three or four stairs to an old oak door, which creaked mournfully on its hinges as it was thrown back, showing a long, sloped, ceiled room, half filled with packing-cases and old fixtures that had been taken down when Hallam hired the house, and had it somewhat modernised for their use. It was a roomy place with a large fireplace that had apparently been partially built up to allow of a small grate being set, while walls and ceiling were covered with a small patterned paper, a few odd rolls and pieces of which lay in a corner. "I see it," cried Julia excitedly. "No, no, no; let me get it," cried Thisbe. "Bless the bairn! why, she's like a young goat. There, now, just see what you've done!" The child had darted at the hinged deal box, stood up on one end against the wall in the angle made by the great projecting fireplace, and in dragging it away torn down a large piece of the wall paper. "Oh, I couldn't help it, Thibs," cried the child panting. "I am so sorry." "So sorry, indeed!" cried Thisbe; "so sorry, indeed, won't mend walls. Why, how wet it is!" she continued, kneeling down and smoothing out the paper, and dabbing it back against the end of the great fireplace from which it had been torn. "There's one of them old gutters got stopped up and the rain soaks in through the roof, and wets this wall; it ought to be seen to at once." All this while making a ball of her apron, Thisbe, who was the perfection of neatness, had been putting back the torn down corner of paper, moistening it here and there, and ending by making it stick so closely that the tear was only visible on a close inspection. This done she rose and carried the box out, and into the child's bedroom, when before the slightest advance had been made towards turning it into a doll's house, there was the ring at the door, and Thisbe descended to admit the curate, to whom Julia came bounding down. VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER TWO. MISS HEATHERY'S OFFERING. Nature, or rather the adaptation from Nature which we call civilisation, deals very hardly with unmarried ladies of twenty-five for the next ten or a dozen years. Then it seems to give them up, and we have arrived at what is politely known as the uncertain age. Very uncertain it is, for, from thirty-five to forty-five some ladies seem to stand still. Miss Heathery was one of these, and the mid-life stage seemed to have made her evergreen, for seven years' lapse found her much the same, scarcely in any manner changed.