Very cold work it became, as it grew to afternoon, notwithstanding the pleasurable excitement of their occupation, and Edith, for one, was not sorry when Helen at last thought it time to pack up their painting materials and turn homewards. A drizzling rain began to fall as they neared the foot of the hill, and they both felt thankful to reach the farm-house,--tired, muddy and damp, and in not _quite_ such high spirits as when they set off on their expedition. A savoury odour meeting them on their entrance, Helen suddenly bethought herself that she had utterly forgotten to order anything for their "high tea," or whatever one likes to call the said incongruous meal. It was therefore an agreeable surprise to her after remembering her neglect to see on entering their little sitting-room the brightest of fires, and the table daintily set out with evident preparation for a tempting repast; part of which, in the shape of a delicious-looking ham, "a new-made pat of butter and a wheaten loaf so fine," had already made its appearance. Damp clothes and muddy boots discarded, they sat down with an excellent appetite to their meal, and the savoury odour which had greeted them was soon explained by the appearance of Mrs. Jones bearing a chicken stewed in mushrooms. "Mushrooms!" exclaimed Helen, "the thing of all others I like. How clever you are, Mrs. Jones, to get us all these good things! I shall leave our food to your providing, I think, in future." Mrs. Jones laughed and said a friend had sent some things from Llanfar, and a friend also had gathered the mushrooms, the last of their season, thinking the young ladies might like them. "Your friends are as good as yourself then, Mrs. Jones," said Helen; but as she spoke she was startled by what sounded like a half-smothered laugh or exclamation of some kind just outside the door. Almost at the same moment her friend the clock began to strike, and she therefore fancied the sound she had heard must have come from it. "Its internal arrangements are, I daresay, as peculiar as its outside," thought she to herself, and refrained therefore from mentioning to Edith what she thought she had heard. All the rest of the evening, however, though she would hardly have owned it to herself, she felt a little nervous and uneasy, particularly when she heard the clock strike. "I wonder what our fellow-lodger does with himself all day," said Edith that evening. "I am sure I don't know, or care either," said Helen, "indeed, I hardly believe there is such a being at all." They went early to bed, and fell quickly asleep. After having slept, it seemed to her for several hours, Helen woke suddenly with the feeling that something had wakened her, and found that the clock was busy striking, and to her confused fancy had been striking for ever so long before she woke. Its strokes ceased before she was sufficiently awake to count them, but a moment or two afterwards she heard a door shut as it had done the night before.