ENGLISH IDEAS AND IRISH WAYS
It was broad daylight when Norah woke next morning, and she sat up
and stared about her, bewildered for a moment by finding herself in
the strange, old-fashioned room, with its low ceiling crossed by
heavy beams, and its dark mahogany furniture. The next instant,
however, she remembered that this was Kilshane, and that they were
really at home in Ireland at last. Soft regular breathing by her
side made her aware that Anstace was still wrapped in soundest sleep,
but Norah was fully awake now, and quite too much on fire with
excitement and curiosity to yield herself to slumber again.
The room had only one lattice-paned window, opening in casement
fashion, and even that was darkened and encroached on by the
luxuriant growth of clematis and climbing roses which mantled the
walls outside and flung their long trails across the narrow window
space, so that but a comparatively small amount of cool, greenish
light could find its way in.
Norah slipped down out of the lofty bed, and pattered across the
floor in her bare feet. Pushing the casement open, she leant far
out, regardless of the shower of dewdrops which she shook down upon
herself, drinking in in one gasp of delight the freshness of the
early morning, the salt sea-breeze that blew in her face, and the
undreamt-of beauty of the prospect that lay outstretched before her.
Immediately below her the green lawn sloped down to the cliffs,
though from the window at which she stood nothing could be seen of
the dizzy precipice; the low wall that bounded their little domain
stood out against the mid-sea, as though one could have stepped from
it far out upon that shining blue plain which stretched away to the
far misty horizon, its solitude unbroken by even a single sail. Upon
the left rose the great purple mountains which had been invisible the
night before, and beneath them lay a wide tract of heathery moor, of
gorse-clad hills and green pasture land. Lower still was a long
range of woods, and below them the bold coast line, with its lofty
headlands, its sheer black cliffs and jagged rocks, over which even
on that calm and sunny morning the long Atlantic surges broke in foam.
Anstace's voice behind her recalled Norah to herself.
"You will catch your death of cold, child, hanging out of the window
in your night-gown. Come in and dress yourself. You will have
plenty of time to look at the view afterwards."
Norah reluctantly drew her head in.
"Oh, Anstace, it's the loveliest place in the whole wide world, and
we are the very luckiest people to have got it all for our own."
Anstace laughed.
"Well, that sounds more cheerful than your remark when we were
driving: here last night. Do you remember how dismal you were then?"
Norah gave her shoulders an unwilling shake.
"As if one could know what anything was like, sitting in pouring rain
with a shawl over one's head. And you haven't half looked at the
view, only given it a sort of glance out of the corner of your eye."
"My dear, the view won't run away," said practical Anstace, "and we
shall be late for breakfast if we don't hurry on. Do begin to dress
yourself!"
The dressing operations partook something of the nature of the famous
race between the hare and the tortoise. Norah's toilet should have
occupied far less time than Anstace's, seeing that she had no long
tresses of hair to brush out, to plait and coil up; but there was so
much to attract her attention in the room, that she was making dives
hither and thither to examine some fresh object of interest between
each garment that she put on. Now she was perched on a chair peering
at one of the discoloured prints in black frames which hung upon the
wall, now exploring the drawers and pigeon-holes of the tall old
mahogany bureau which stood in one corner, and now she was
scrutinizing her face in the little clouded mirror above the
chimney-piece; so that Anstace, proceeding steadily all the while
with her dressing, had put in the last hair-pin, and stood
faultlessly neat from her smoothly-parted hair to the tie of her
shoes, in the same moment that Norah, wriggling into her frock after
a fashion peculiarly her own, and dragging the buttons and
button-holes together in haste, proclaimed herself ready. Just then,
too, Roderick's door was heard to open, and his step and whistle
sounded on the stairs, so Anstace and Norah lost no time in following
him down to the little parlour where they had had supper the night
before.
The window, which was embowered in green, like that of their bedroom
above, stood wide open, letting in the fresh morning breeze and all
the sweet spring-tide scents, but there was no appearance of
breakfast, and Biddy, who came from the kitchen in a state of morning
deshabille, declared "She'd niver had a thought their honours would
be that early, an' they desthroyed wid cowld an' hardship the night
before ".
Seeing that there was likely to be some delay before their morning
meal was ready for them, the new-comers strolled out of doors and
down by a moss-grown path which led to the edge of the cliffs.
Viewed from without, the house was a rambling, irregular structure,
two stories high in some parts, only a single story in others, but
overgrown everywhere with the same luxuriant green mantle of roses,
jessamine, and ivy, all matted and intertwined.
Anstace's eyes soon wandered back from the house to Roderick's face,
on which they rested anxiously. She was afraid he might have caught
a chill from the exposure of the previous evening, but he laughed her
fears away.
"I feel another man already," he said, drawing a deep draught, as he
spoke, of the vigorous sea air; "I shall write to Dr. Trafford and
tell him I have tossed all his tonics and physic bottles over the
cliffs. It was that stifling city den, and the everlasting scribble,
scribble from morning till night, which were doing for me."
Whilst toil had been needful, Roderick had worked on bravely and
uncomplainingly, but now that those months of drudgery were laid
behind him, he could not conceal how irksome his life in the lawyer's
office had been to him.
Norah interposed here to ask what the dark woods were which stretched
along the cliffs some two miles away.
"Those are the woods of Moyross Abbey, where our father lived when he
was a boy, and Uncle Nicholas lives now," Roderick answered. "Do you
see how, on beyond, just this side of the headland--Drinane Head it's
called--the cliff is all scarped and cut away, and the red earth
thrown out upon the hillside? That is the copper-mine which Uncle
Nicholas set going, and there is an iron pier down below that he
made, for ships to lie at to load the ore."
"It was a wonderful undertaking," said Anstace, following the
direction in which her brother pointed.
"It was, indeed, for one man to plan and carry out. He deserves all
the wealth which the mine has brought him in. See, Norah, you can
just make out the chimneys of Moyross House above the trees. The
ruins of the abbey where the monks used to live in old times are
close to it, and behind the abbey there is a little wooded glen, with
a steep path winding down through it to a little cove below, one of
the very few places along the coast where a boat can find shelter in
rough weather. I suppose that was one of the reasons why the monks
chose that particular site for their abbey. Some of the steps going
down to the sea are the very ones, I believe, that the monks put
there, and the stones have deep hollows worn in them by all the feet
that have gone up and down for hundreds of years."
"But Roderick, when did you see it all?" cried Norah.
A cloud came over Roderick's face.
"I walked down through the glen that one day that I was at Moyross,
the day of poor old Cousin Ansey's funeral. I had heard our father
talk so often of that Monks' Walk, as it is called, and I wanted to
see as much as I could of his old home."
"And you'll take me to see it all some day, won't you?--the old abbey
and the Monks' Walk, and all?" pleaded Norah, hanging coaxingly on
his arm.
Roderick shook his head.
"Not unless Uncle Nicholas invites us there, and that, I think, is
hardly likely. He has made it plain that he has not forgiven our
father, even in his grave, for the wrong he did him, nor us, for
being our father's children."
Roderick spoke with a bitterness very unusual to him, but, after all,
it was hard that whilst almost all he could see around him--great
mountains, wide sweeps of moorland, woods and farms, and rocks rich
in minerals--had belonged to his ancestors, he himself should be an
alien and a stranger there. Even that low creeper-covered house,
with its two or three fields stretching along the edge of the cliffs,
had only come to him by the bequest of a distant relative, and in all
probability, if the old man who now held the great O'Brien estate in
his grasp had had the power to keep it from them, not even that one
small corner of the family domain would have descended to his own
kith and kin.
"Uncle Nicholas is an old horror!" said Norah with energy; "and if he
doesn't want to have anything to say to us, I'm sure we don't want
him either."
And just then Biddy appeared in front of the house, and by vehement
waving of her arms gave them to understand that the tardy breakfast
was at length ready.
Their first morning repast in the quaint old-fashioned parlour was a
very gay and cheerful one, though Anstace's housewifely eye detected
many things that did not please her: the little heaps of dust in the
corners which no intrusive broom could have disturbed for a very
considerable period, and the long cobwebs that hung down from the
ceiling and swayed slowly to and fro as the fresh breeze blew in at
the open window. When breakfast was ended, they started to explore
the old house which had come into their possession with all that it
contained. Opposite the parlour was the drawing-room, a long,
low-ceiled room, furnished with spindle-legged tables and chairs,
with tall old cabinets, black with age, ranged against the walls. A
glass door opened out into what had once been the garden but was now
a wilderness, where evergreen shrubs, tall weeds, and a few hardy
flowers which had survived years of neglect struggled with each other
for the mastery. Ragged fuchsia hedges fenced in the little plot,
and in the kitchen-garden beyond, the old fruit-trees stretched out
their branches, laden with snowy blossom, over the sea of tangled
vegetation that grew about their roots.
"There will be no lack of work there for some time to come," said
Roderick cheerily.
After his months of drudgery at a desk and of close confinement in a
city office, occupation of any sort in the open air was alluring, and
he opened the glass doors as he spoke and stepped out upon the
grass-grown walk, eager to commence the herculean task of digging and
uprooting without even a moment's delay. Anstace turned down the
flagged passage which led towards the back of the house, in quest of
Biddy, and Norah followed her.
At the kitchen door Anstace stopped short and gave a little
exclamation of dismay, involuntarily gathering her skirts about her,
and undoubtedly anyone accustomed to the neatness and cleanliness of
an English kitchen was likely to receive a shock at the first sight
of the premises presided over by Biddy. A cavernous fireplace
without a grate occupied almost the whole of one wall. The turf fire
was built upon the hearthstone, and a huge three-legged pot was
suspended over it by a hook and iron chain, whilst a low stone hob in
front kept the burning peats from falling on to the floor. The walls
had once been whitewashed, but time and turf smoke had mellowed them
to a warm yellowish tint, which deepened near the hearth to a rich
dark brown, and it must have been long, very long indeed, since the
floor had made acquaintance with soap and water or a scrubbing-brush.
Biddy had not allowed herself to suffer from loneliness, at least in
so far as dumb companionship went, for a large and motley family were
lodged within the kitchen. A mongrel collie, blind of an eye, had
been arrested on its way in from the yard by Anstace and Norah's
sudden appearance, and stood regarding them mistrustfully out of its
remaining orb. A large black cat, snugly curled up in front of the
fire, was sleepily keeping watch out of one eye on the gambols of two
kittens as they rolled each other over and over on the floor; and on
the top rail of a chair beside her, over the back of which some
articles from the wash-tub had been hung to dry, a chicken was
perched, shaking out its feathers and pluming itself in evident
enjoyment of the warmth. It seemed to Anstace, in a rapid survey of
the kitchen furniture, that this was the only chair possessed all at
once of a back, a seat, and the full complement of legs, all others
being destitute of one at least of these appurtenances. An
old-fashioned mahogany wine-cooler in one corner had been turned to a
use for which it had not originally been intended, for at that moment
a hen flew up out of it, and with loud and long repeated cackles made
everyone within hearing aware that she had laid an egg. Another hen,
with a dozen yellow balls of chickens running at her feet, was
stalking about the floor, pecking hither and thither in hope of
finding something to eat; and the door of a cupboard which stood open
revealed a turkey seated in a basket within and engaged in the
important business of bringing out a clutch of eggs.
Norah subsided on to the floor with a little cry of delight, divided
in her ecstasy between the soft, furry kittens and the softer, downy
chicks; but Anstace remained standing, her skirts still gathered up,
gazing with a face of rueful disgust at the kitchen and its denizens,
and at the collection of miscellaneous articles which were piled
pell-mell upon each other in the corners. There were old
fishing-nets and fishing-lines, chairs without seats and jugs without
handles, empty bottles and broken plates--even odd boots and shoes
were stored up with the other lumber.
Biddy came in just then from the yard, carrying a pail of water,
which she splashed freely round her as she walked. She smiled
broadly upon the girls, quite unconscious that there was anything
amiss with herself and her surroundings, and with a flourish of her
disengaged arm drove out the hen, which was still loudly and
insistently proclaiming its feat just achieved.
"Quit out o' this, this minnit, the noisy crayther that y' are! Who
wants to be hearin' ye, d' ye think?"
Anstace's feelings had been too deeply stirred to permit her to keep
silence, and she broke out impatiently:
"Biddy, is there not a hen-house outside to keep the fowl in, instead
of having them in the kitchen?"
"Och, yis sure, Miss Anstace, but the roof's bin off it this long
start; Tom tuk the rafthers away for firin' one winther whin the turf
was scarce. An' what wud ail the craythers bein' in the kitchen?
'Tis warm an' snug for them, an' handy for me to throw them a praty
whin I'd be at me dinner."
"But I cannot possibly have hens sitting and laying in the kitchen,"
protested Anstace. "I will ask Mr. Roderick to have the hen-house
put to rights, and then the fowl must go out there."
"Well, plaze yerself, alannah," said Biddy resignedly, "but 'tis kilt
they'll be wid the cowld an' the lonesomeness."
"And Biddy," went on Anstace, with all the zeal of a young reformer,
not understanding that it is sometimes well to introduce reforms
gradually, and one at a time, "there is surely no need to have all
this litter piled up here. Why, one can hardly turn round with the
quantity of things collected in the kitchen."
"Och, darlin' dear, 'tis just for convaniency, that they'd be there
for me to put me hand on whin I'd be in a throng of a hurry."
"But there are some things here which you could never want to put
your hand on, whether you were in a hurry or not."
And Anstace, still holding up her dress to keep it from any possible
contact with the grimy floor, stepped daintily across the kitchen and
lifted the battered remnant of a basket without bottom or handle out
of the rubbish heap.
"Now what use could that ever be to anyone?"
"Trath, yis, Miss Anstace, 'twill be jist iligant for lightin' the
fires some marnin' whin the shticks is wantin'."
"Well then, Biddy, this won't light fires, and I don't know what else
it could be good for;" and Anstace's next dive into the accumulated
rubbish produced a rusty, lidless kettle, which she held up to view.
"Well, maybe no, Miss Anstace," admitted Biddy, "unless 'twud be for
givin' the hens a dhrink out ov, for 'tis treminjous the crockery
thim fowl does break. 'Twas but yisterday, whin I was runnin' twinty
ways at a time to git the clanin' done an' all set to rights afore
yous 'ud come, that I put their mate for them in the vegetable dish
that was ould Miss Ansey's, an' I declare to ye, Miss Anstace, I
hadn't it but jist set down out ov me hand than thim divils had it
broke wid their fightin' an' their carryin' on, an' it more years in
the house nor ye could count."
And with a tragic gesture Biddy pointed to some broken fragments
lying amongst the ashes on the hearth, the rich colouring and quaint
design upon them proclaiming that they were of rare old china.
Before Anstace could attempt any further remonstrance, however, or
suggest that in future the fowl should be given their food in less
costly feeding-vessels, there was a shrill cry from Norah, who all
this while had been goading the kittens into frenzy by trailing her
handkerchief slowly before them, and flicking it suddenly high out of
their reach just as they were in the very act of pouncing upon it.
"The dog! the dog!" she cried, with a shriek of laughter. "Look at
the dog!"
The one-eyed collie, finding that no one was paying him any
attention, had crept across the kitchen and in under the table, and
was engaged in licking up the tempting sediment of grease which
remained in the frying-pan in which the breakfast bacon had been
cooked.
"Ye tory! ye thief o' the world!" screamed Biddy, turning round
quickly and hurling the first missile which came to her hand--a
battered tin candlestick as it chanced--at the offender, with so true
an aim that he fled with a yelp of pain and terror, his tail between
his legs, and was seen no more.
The speckled hen, startled by the sudden clatter, flew shrieking
across the kitchen, her yellow brood scuttling after her; the chicken
which had been pluming itself before the fire sought refuge upon the
chimney-piece; the two kittens bounded into the recesses of the
piled-up lumber, whence they peeped out in much alarm; the old cat
alone refused to allow her sleepy dignity to be discomposed, and
merely opened her other eye for a moment to see what the disturbance
was about. Norah sat back on the floor and laughed till the tears
ran down her face, and even Anstace, vexed though she was, could not
help joining in her merriment. Judging, however, that no further
remonstrances were likely to prove of much effect just then, she drew
the reluctant Norah on to her feet and out of the kitchen, declaring
that it was time they should get their boxes unpacked and the
contents put away in their bedroom upstairs.
Anstace was a good deal disconcerted by the laughter with which
Roderick received her account of her first visit to Biddy's domain.
It was when they met again at their early dinner that she gave it to
him, and it was chiefly the horror-stricken air with which she told
of the discoveries she had made, and the condition of things which
prevailed there, which diverted Roderick, but Anstace was provoked
none the less. And when Norah, looking up from her mutton chop,
said: "I suppose all Irish people keep their kitchens like that,
Anstace, and the best we can do is to get used to Irish ways as fast
as we can, then it will seem quite natural to us too;" she answered,
with a sharpness very unusual to her: "My dear, you and Roderick can
do as you please, but I must remind you that our mother was an
Englishwoman, and we are as much English as Irish. For my own part I
trust I shall always remain sufficiently English in my ideas not to
find it natural that hens should lay in wine-coolers, and dogs lick
the frying-pans clean."
And in her own mind the young mistress of Kilshane determined that
her first act after taking over the reins of government should be to
institute such a cleaning-down and clearing-out of the old house as
it had probably never known since it was built.
In the afternoon the two girls started to make further explorations,
and went through the long unused rooms upstairs, where the furniture
was still standing exactly as it had stood in the days when the elder
Anstace O'Brien had dwelt in the little lonely house upon the cliffs.
The family lawyer had furnished Roderick with a huge bunch of rusty
keys, and Norah and Anstace went about fitting them to the doors of
cupboards and presses. The locks and hinges that had grown stiff
with years of disuse creaked dismally as they yielded and disclosed
to view long-hidden services of quaint old china, old-fashioned
silver that bore the O'Brien crest and was worn by the handling of
generations of dead and gone O'Briens, antiquated jewels in faded
velvet-lined cases,--all covered thickly with dust that had filtered
slowly in on them through cracks and crevices. There were filmy
laces too, and embroideries, and richly-coloured Indian shawls, all
carefully laid away in the bedroom that had been old Miss Anstace's,
and smelling still of the lavender and sandal-wood that had been put
amongst them to preserve them. It seemed almost like sacrilege to
the two girls to be going about thus letting in the light of day on
these hoards, the cherished possessions of the poor old woman whose
life had been a living death for twelve years before she died.
Biddy had invited herself to assist in the researches, and each fresh
store-place that was opened produced a torrent of exclamations and
recollections from her.
"Troth, I mind them well, ivery fork and ivery spoon that's in it.
Many's the time I've seen all the quality in the county sittin'
down-stairs aitin' their dinner wid that silver an' off that chaney,
an' Miss Ansey herself sittin' at the top of the table in her silks
an' her lace, as grand as ye plaze, while me an' the other girls wud
be peepin' in at the door to get a sight of the ladies' fine dresses.
'Twas always Miss Ansey we called her, for all that she'd the right
to be Miss O'Brien, an' carriage an' demanour she had enough to fit a
duchess. To see her sweepin' along wid her head in the air an' her
silk gown a yard on the ground behind her! 'I must keep up my
poseetion, Biddy,' says she to me times an' agin; 'sure any wan as
marries an O'Brien looks to marry into wan o' the first families o'
Clare, nor they'll not be disappinted by me,' says she. An' all the
while her heart was aitin' itself oot wid sorra an' lonesomeness, an'
miny's the hour I've seen her stannin' where ye're stannin' this
minnit, Miss Anstace, starin' oot over the say as if that 'ud dhraw
the man she was waitin' for back to her. But he niver come for all
her watchin', an' at the last she tuk to goin' bansheein' about the
cliffs, ballyowrin' and wringin' her hands till we was feared 'twud
be throwin' herself over she'd be."
"Poor Cousin Ansey!" sighed Anstace; "and so they had to take her
away from here and shut her up where she would be safe?"
"Yis indade, Miss Anstace. 'Twas yer own uncle, Mr. O'Brien of
Moyross beyant, that fetched a gran' gintleman a' the way from Dublin
to see her; an' between them they tuk an' carried her away, an' sure
that was the last that any of us here iver seed of her. Thin yer
uncle he come down, an' locked all up, an' give me the charge, an'
not a key's bin turned nor a ha'porth stirred till this blessed day
that yer own hands has done it--an' who'd have the betther right?"
"And have you and your husband lived here in Kilshane ever since old
Cousin Ansey went mad and was taken away to Dublin?" asked Norah.
Biddy turned to regard her with amazement.
"Musha, what's come to the child? Husband, says she! Sorra wan o'
me iver was married, Miss Norah, or iver will be nayther."
"But the man who lifted me off the car and carried me into the house
last night, I thought he must be your husband. Who was he, then?"
"Och, that's jist Tom, me brither Tom, that was coachman to Miss
Ansey, an' dhruv her in her own carriage--more be token the carriage
is in the coach-house yit, only the mice--bad scran to thim!--has th'
inside of it ate out an' desthroyed. He's livin' noo in his own
house, that yez passed upon the road, if there'd been light to ha'
seen it, an' his sivin orphins wid him--herself's been dead this
twal'month past. Sorra tak ye, Lanty! What d'ye come stalin' into
people's hooses, an' frightenin' the sinses out o' them, an' me
spakin' about ye this very minnit?"
They had descended by this time from the upper regions to the pantry
beside the kitchen, and Anstace had been opening the presses in the
wall and bringing to view dusty hoards of glasses and decanters of
the fashion of fifty years before. A slight noise behind them had
made them turn to behold a red-headed, loutish-looking lad standing
in the doorway, a string of fine rock-codling in his hand. With an
awkward bow to the young ladies, he muttered something about having
been at the fishing with his father, and thinking their honours might
like a few fresh fish; and having deposited the codling on the
flagstone at his feet, he lost no time in making off, without
awaiting Anstace's thanks.
"Yis, that's Lanty, that's the ouldest of the sivin, an' not his ekal
in the counthry for divvlement an' mischeeviousness," said Biddy,
looking dispassionately after her nephew's retreating form. "He's
for iver sthreelin' an' sthravagin' aboot i'stead o' doin' an honest
day's work. Theer, if it's not foive o'clock as I'm a livin' woman,
an' the hins, the craythers, niver fed yit!"
And away Biddy hurried.
Two or three days passed over very busily and very happily. Anstace
was hard at work within doors and Roderick no less hard at work
without, digging, pruning, clearing away the tangled overgrowth in
the neglected garden, or else walking about the two or three fields
which comprised the little domain of Kilshane, deep in consultation
on farming matters with Tom Hogan, Biddy's brother, who, since those
bygone days of state when he had driven Miss Ansey in her own
carriage, had acted as steward, gardener, shepherd, and farm-labourer
all in one to the little property.
They were halcyon days for Norah. No one had much leisure to attend
to her, there were no lessons, no irksome school-room restraints; she
was free to wander where she pleased, Roderick's prohibition against
going near the cliffs being the only restriction laid upon her. From
time to time she proffered her valuable services to her elder brother
or sister, but her efforts to assist them in their labours were
somewhat spasmodic, and in general she proved fully as much a
hindrance as a help, so that Roderick and Anstace were generally glad
to dismiss her to amuse herself as she could.
She had speedily made acquaintance with most of the dwellers in the
cabins near at hand, welcomed wherever she went with Irish heartiness
and good-will. She was on a specially friendly footing, however,
with the Hogan family, and had soon come to know all the seven
"orphins", from red-haired Lanty down to Kat, the two-year-old
bare-legged baby, which spent its time for the most part seated on
the door-step scooping water in a broken cup from the stagnant pool
in front of the door. A very few days had demonstrated the
impossibility of retaining Biddy as servant, indeed she herself had
no wish to remain, declaring "she'd be kilt wid the clanin'" which
Miss Anstace seemed to consider indispensable. She had departed,
therefore, to the family residence of the Hogans, to keep house for
her brother, carrying her cats, her hens, and her other belongings
with her, and the orphan next in age to Lanty, a bashful,
rosy-cheeked girl of whom Anstace hoped in time to make a neat little
hand-maiden, had come to Kilshane in her stead.
It was quite wonderful, even by the end of the first week, how much
had been effected towards making the little house upon the cliffs
more home-like. Open windows and well-polished window-panes, fresh
air and light let in everywhere, had done much; Anstace's taste and
skill even more. Heavy and dusty hangings had been taken down and
fresh muslin curtains put up in their place, bright chintz covers
fashioned by Anstace's deft fingers concealed the faded upholstery of
the chairs and couches in the little drawing-room. Some rare old
china jars and bowls which had been discovered amongst Miss Ansey's
belongings had been brought down from the hiding-places where they
had been stowed away so long, and were disposed upon the
old-fashioned cabinets and whatnots; and such books and photographs
and other knick-knacks as they had brought from London were scattered
here and there. Norah had borne her part in the decoration of the
drawing-room, for it was she who had brought in all the spring-tide
spoils--the purple violets and pale primroses, the delicate wood
anemones, the silvery catkins and branches of larch just breaking
into their first vivid green--which were set everywhere, on the
tables, the chimney-piece, the window-sills, and gave grace and
beauty to the little room.
It was perhaps no wonder that Anstace, lying back in her chair when
Saturday evening came, said in a voice that was tired but triumphant:
"Well, I do think we may feel proud of our little home."