Page:Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag, Volume 2.djvu/141

Rh sprinkled over it. A truly superb chapeau and a memorable one.

Away they trundled through stony streets, dusty roads, waste grounds, marshy meadows, and tumbled-down pleasure-gardens, till the clothes-basket turned down a lane, and the bony horse stopped at length before a door in a high red wall.

"Behold!" cried madame, leading them with much clanking of keys, into a cabbage garden. A small tool-house stood among the garden-stuff, with brick floors, very dirty windows, and the atmosphere of a tomb. Bags of seed, wheelbarrows, onions, and dust cumbered the ground. Empty bottles stood on the old table, cigar ends lay thick upon the hearth, and a trifle of gay crockery adorned the mantel-piece.

"See, then, here is a salon, so cool, so calm. Above is a room with beds, and around the garden where the ladies can sit all day. A maid can achieve the breakfast here, and my carriage can come for them to dine at the hotel. Is it not charmingly arranged?"

"It is simply awful," said Mat, aghast at the prospect.