Starvecrow Farm by Stanley J. Weyman

Cheerful lights shining from the open doorway and the red-curtained windows of the inn, illumined the road immediately before it; and if these and the change in all the surroundings did not at once dispel the loneliness at Henrietta's heart, at least they drove the tears from her eyes and the blushes from her cheeks. The cold moonlight, the unchanging face of nature, had sobered and frightened her; the warmth of fire and candle, the sound of voices, and the low, homely front of the house, with its two projecting gables, reassured her. The forlorn child who had flung herself into her lover's arms not forty seconds before was not to be recognised in the girl who alighted slowly and with gay self-possession, took in the scene at a glance, and won the hearts of ostler and stableboy by her ease and her fresh young beauty. She was bare-headed, and her high-dressed hair, a little disordered by the journey, gleamed in the lanthorn-light. Her eyes were like stars. The landlord of the inn-known for twenty miles round as "Long Tom Gilson"-saw at a glance that the missus's tongue would run on her. He wished that he might not be credited with his hundred-and-thirty-first conquest!

The thought, however, did not stand between him and his duty. "Sharp, Sam," he cried briskly. "Fire in Mr. Rogers's room. " Then to his guests: "Late? No, sir, not at all. This way, ma'am. All will be ready in a twinkling."