and ladies of old time, and then the drawing-room. A real drawing-room of the Sixties, a thing preserved in its entirety, in all its original stiffness, interesting as a valentine, perfumed like an old rosewood cabinet. Keepsakes and Books of Beauty lay on the centre 100 table, a gilt clock beneath a glass shade marked the moment when it had ceased to keep time over twenty-five years ago, the antimacassars on the armchairs were not a line out of position; not a speck of dust lay anywhere, and the Dresden shepherds and shepherdesses simpered and made love in the same old fashion, preserving unaltered the sentiment of spring, the suggestion of Love, lambs, and the song of birds. 100 “It’s just as it used to be,” said Miss Pinckney. “Nothing at all has been changed, and I dust it myself. I would just as soon let a servant loose here with a duster as I’d let one of the buzzards from the market-place loose in the larder. Those water-colours were done by Mary Mascarene, Juliet’s sister, who died when she was fifteen; they mayn’t be masterpieces but they’re Mary’s, and worth more’n if they were covered with gold. Mrs. Beamis sniffed when she came in here—she’s the woman whose trunk got loose on the stairs I told you about—sniffed as if the place smelt musty. She’s got a husband who’s made a million dollars out of dry goods in Chicago, and she thought the room wanted re-furnishing. Didn’t say it, but I knew. A player-piano is what she wanted. Didn’t say it, but I knew. Umph!” Miss Pinckney, having shown Phyl out, looked round the room as if to make sure that all the familiar ghosts were in their places, then she shut the door with a snap, and turning, led the way upstairs murmuring to herself, and with the exalted and far away look which she wore when put out. 101 101 Phyl’s room lay on the first landing, a bright and cheerful room papered with a rather cheap flower and sprig patterned paper, spring-like for all its cheapness, and just the background for children’s heads when they wake up on a bright morning. A bowl of flowers stood on the dressing-table, and the open window shewed across the verandah a bit of the garden, where the cherokee roses were blooming. “This is your room,” said Miss Pinckney. “It’s one of the brightest in the house, and I hope you’ll like it— Listen!” Through the open window came the chime of church-bells.
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