est in
everything that happened, and to be a real companion who loved to help
her mother at any important task. Thus one winter evening between tea
and supper, when Mavis was most importantly engaged, she sat up late
by special license and gave her company and aid in the little room
behind the kitchen.
"Now, see if you can find the blotting-paper over there on daddy's
desk. Quietly, my darling. Very quietly--because we mustn't wake
Billy."
Billy, the little boy, was asleep in his cradle, near, but not too
near, the cheerful fire; a bluish flicker that reminded one of the
frost out of doors showed intermittently among the yellow and red
flames; the wick of the lamp on the round table burned clearly; and in
the mingling lamplight and firelight the whole room looked
delightfully cozy and homelike. Mavis, with a body just pleasantly
tired and a mind still comfortably active, paused before starting her
labor in order luxuriously to feel the peaceful charm that was being
shed forth by all her surroundings.
More and more the very heart of their home life seemed to locate
itself in this room, and so every day additional memories and
associations wove themselves about the objects it contained. Rachel,
young as she was, showed a marked predilection for it, loving it
better than all other rooms. From the dawn of intelligence she had
been fascinated by the two guns and the brass powder-flasks that hung
high over the chimney-place; her first climbings and tumblings had
been performed on the three steps that led to the kitchen; and she had
addled her tender brains, as well as inflamed the natural greed which
is so pardonable in infants, by what was to her a sort of differential
calculus before she learned to discriminate nicely among the various
jams kept by Mummy in the big cupboard.
Nearly all the furniture, as well as the two guns, had belonged to Mr.
Bates. It was solid, and very old--a tall-boy with a drawer that,
opening out, made a writing-desk; a bureau with a latticed glass
front; three chairs of the Chippendale farmhouse order; and one vast
chair, covered with leather and adorned with nails, that had probably
been dozed in by the hall-porter of some great mansion more than a
century ago. Here and there Mavis had of course dabbed her small
prettinesses--blue china and a clock on the mantel-shelf, colored
cushions, photographs of the children, views of Rodchurch High Street,
the Chase, Rodhaven Pier; and the old and
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