down a stone staircase, with the aid of the bannisters, to a narrow, low passage, and found my way presently to the kitchen.
It was full of the fragrance of new bread, and the warmth of a generous fire. Hannah was baking. Prejudices, it is well known, are most difficult to eradicate from the heart whose soil has never been loosened or fertilized by education: they grow there, firm as weeds among stones. Hannah had been cold and stiff, indeed, at the first: latterly, she had begun to relent a little; and when she saw me come in tidy and well-dressed, she even smiled.
"What, you have got up?" she said. "You are better, then. You may sit you down in my chair on the hearthstone, if you will."
She pointed to the rocking chair: I took it. She bustled about, examining me every now and then with the corner of her eye. Turning to me, as she took some loaves from the oven, she asked, bluntly,—
"Did you ever go a-begging afore you came here?"
I was indignant for a moment: but remembering that anger was out of the question, and that I had indeed appeared as a beggar to her, I answered quietly; but still not without a certain marked firmness,—
