He must
stay in Harting that night. Both the Ship and the Coach and Horses
were excellent inns, and over the Downs there would be nothing for
miles and miles. . . .
The house was a little long house with a verandah and a garden in
front of it with flint-edged paths; the room in which they sat and
ate was long and low and equipped with pieces of misfitting good
furniture, an accidental-looking gilt tarnished mirror, and a
sprinkling of old and middle-aged books. Some one had lit a fire,
which cracked and spurted about cheerfully in a motherly fireplace,
and a lamp and some candles got lit. Mrs. Wilder, Amanda's aunt, a
comfortable dark broad-browed woman, directed things, and sat at the
end of the table and placed Benham on her right hand between herself
and Amanda. Amanda's mother remained undeveloped, a watchful little
woman with at least an eyebrow like her daughter's. Her name, it
seemed, was Morris. No servant appeared, but two cousins of a vague
dark picturesqueness and with a stamp of thirty upon them, the first
young women Benham had ever seen dressed in djibbahs, sat at the
table or moved about and attended to the simple needs of the
service.
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