So it was settled, and Winifred went up to the Hall to stay for the two weeks that should elapse before Lady Peckham went to London. Busy weeks they were, and full of pleasant employment, whether she worked at her embroidery, ran up and down-stairs for Mrs. Alwright and helped her in the still-room and kitchen, where she learned to make biscuits, and almond paste, and maukpane and saffron cakes, and all the other delicacies for which that lady was famous, or whether she sat or walked with my lady in the rapidly lengthening twilight, telling of the things they both loved, or read to her as she worked in her own chamber. Many were the cabinet drawers and boxes she helped to rummage, filled with all the accumulations of generations of ladies famous for needlework and all such accomplishments, and many were the precious presents she received,—bits of wonderful brocades and ribbons for her silk patchwork (then a great fashion, as it was a few years since), of ivory and tortoise-shell tatting-shuttles and netting-boxes, of pin-cushions and needle-books, of embroidery patterns and silks, each and all accompanied by the exhortation, "Take care of it, child! It will come in use some day." But at last all came to an end. The day of final departure arrived. Winifred bade her friends farewell, and stood at the hall door till the clumsy coach with its six horses and outriders (not for show, but use) drove down the long avenue and disappeared. Then, feeling as though a part of her life had gone away with it, she dried her eyes, and turned back into the house to finish up some last things which had been left to her care. Later in the day, Winifred walked homeward, followed by the herd-boy bearing her bundles, but carrying herself, as too precious to intrust to another, her chief treasures—Hall's "Chronicle," some books of devotion my lady had given her, and the "Arcadia" of Sir Philip Sidney—"the only romance," said Mrs. Alwright, "fit for a young maiden to read." At the turn of the avenue, she stopped and looked back. There stood the old Hall, in all its quaint beauty, under the light of the spring sunshine, but all the windows were closed, and Winifred thought it already looked desolate and forlorn. She gazed a long time, till her eyes grew too full to see any longer. "Well," said she, as at last she turned away, "I have at least one comfort! No one can ever take from me the remembrance of the pleasant times I have had and the things I have learned of my lady!" CHAPTER XII. BRISTOL. "HERE is that child, poring over her book again, wasting her precious time and eyesight! I declare she is enough to try a saint! After all I have done for her! I have a great mind to burn up all her books except the Bible, that I have."