pe due to its nearness to the roof.
The ceiling sloped on either side of the window almost to the floor. It
was not a room that was square and obvious, for round the corner from
the door was a fairly large alcove which was not destined to lose its
romance for many years. The staircase that led up to the day-nursery was
light and cheerful owing to the skylight in the roof. Yet this skylight
Michael could have wished away. It was a vulnerable spot which made the
day-nursery just a little uneasy at dusk--this and the cistern cupboard
with its dark boomings and hammerings and clankings and utter
inexplicableness. However, the day-nursery was a bright room, with a
cosy atmosphere of its own. The pleasantest meal of the day was taken
there, and in a black cupboard lived the golden syrup and the heraldic
mugs and the dumpy teapot and the accessories of tea. What a much
pleasanter cupboard this was than the smaller one in the night-nursery
which revealed, when opened, slim and ugly ipecacuanha, loathsome
Gregory-powder with wooden cap and squat cork, wicked envelopes of grey
powders and slippery bottles of castor-oil. There, too, was the
liver-coloured liquorice-powder, the vile rhubarb and the deceitful
senna. In fact, apart from a bag of jaded acid-drops, there were only
two pleasant inmates of this cupboard--the silvery and lucent syrup of
squills and a round box of honey and borax. There were no pills because
Nurse objected to pills. She was always telling Michael as he listened,
sick at heart, to the stirring-up of the Gregory-powder with a muffled
spoon, so different from the light-hearted tinkle and quick fizz of
magnesia, to be thankful he was not on the verge of taking a pill. That
she represented as something worthy of a struggle. Michael imagined the
taking of a pill to be equivalent to swallowing a large painted ball
full of a combination of all the nastiest medicines in the world. Even
the omnipotent, omniscient Nanny could not take a pill.

There were other jolly cupboards in the day-nursery--one in particular
pasted over with 'scraps' and varnished--a work of art that was always
being added to for a treat. There was a patchwork hearthrug very
comfortable to lie upon beside the cat and her two black kittens. There
was Nanny's work-table in the window, gay with coloured silks and wools.
There was a piano locked up until Michael's first lesson, but
nevertheless wonderful on account of the smooth curve of the lid that