n always shake it out
fresh and make it comfortable. It was only getting full of dust
up-stairs. There's a square pillow in the trunk-room that you can
have too, and cover with something. A five minutes' level rest is
nice, between times, I know. I wonder I never thought of it before."

How would Bel or Kate have ever got a "five minutes' level rest,"
over their machine-driving at Fillmer & Bylles? Bel had said well,
that girls and women need to work under cover; in a _home_, where
they can "rest by snatches." A mere roof is not a cover; there may
be driving afield in a great warehouse, as well as out upon a
plantation.

The last touch and achievement was more of the dun-gray carpet,
like that in their bedroom, and more of the scarlet and black
stair-border, made into a rug, which was spread down when work was
over, and rolled up under the table when dinner was to dish, or a
wash was going on. They had been with Mrs. Scherman a month before
they ventured upon that asking.

When it was finished, Sin brought her husband down after tea one
night, to look at it.

"It is the most fascinating room in the house," she said.

There was a side gas-light over the white-topped table, burning
brightly. Upon the table were work-baskets, and a volume from the
Public Library. The lounge was just turned out from the wall a
little, towards it, and opposite stood the round rocking-chair.
Cheeps, in his cage at the farther window, was asleep in a yellow
ball, his head under his wing. Bel was hanging the last dish-towel
upon a little folding-horse in the chimney corner, and they could
hear Kate singing up-stairs to a gentle clatter of the dishes that
she was putting away from the dining-room use.

"It looks as a kitchen ought to," said Mr. Scherman. "As my
grandmother's used to look; as if all the house-comfort came from
it."

"It isn't a place to forbid children out of, is it?" asked Asenath.

"I should think the only condition would be their own best
behavior," returned her husband.

"They're almost always good down here," said Bel. "Children like to
be where things are doing. They always feel put away, out of the
good times, I think, in a nursery."

"My housekeeping is all turning round on a new pivot," said Sin to
Frank, after they were seated again up-stairs. "Don't take up the
'Skelligs' yet; I want to tell you. If I thought the pivot would
really _stay_, there are two or three more things I should do. And
one of them i