And there was the best reason for hastening into the house at once,
since the snow was beginning to fall again, and threatening an
unpleasant journey for such guests as were still on the road. These
were a small minority; for already the afternoon was beginning to
decline, and there would not be too much time for the ladies who
came from a distance to attire themselves in readiness for the early
tea which was to inspirit them for the dance.
There was a buzz of voices through the house, as Miss Nancy
entered, mingled with the scrape of a fiddle preluding in the kitchen;
but the Lammeters were guests whose arrival had evidently been thought
of so much that it had been watched for from the windows, for Mrs
Kimble, who did the honours at the Red House on these great occasions,
came forward to meet Miss Nancy in the hall, and conduct her upstairs.
Mrs Kimble was the Squire's sister, as well as the doctor's wife- a
double dignity, with which her diameter was in direct proportion; so
that, a journey upstairs being rather fatiguing to her, she did not
oppose Miss Nancy's request to be allowed to find her way alone to the
Blue Room, where the Miss Lammeters' bandboxes had been deposited on
their arrival in the morning.
There was hardly a bedroom in the house where feminine
compliments were not passing and feminine toilettes going forward,
in various stages, in space made scanty by extra beds spread upon
the floor; and Miss Nancy, as she entered the Blue Room, had to make
her little formal curtsy to a group of six.
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