Page:Emma Speed Sampson--The shorn lamb.djvu/178

174 medicine chest, with the simple remedies recommended by Dr. Price to be given to the ailing darkeys, instead of the "charm poultices" and "yarb" teas with which Aunt Peachy had been accustomed to hold them in fearful subjection.

The attic extended over the whole house, but only a part of it had been floored over. It was dimly lighted by small windows, close up under the eaves, but Philip had cut a skylight in the roof and neatly fitted in a sash which gave him plenty of light and much better ventilation. The discarded furniture of past generations had been pushed back in the dark corners of the huge room. Stored on the unfloored rafters were many rare pieces of mahogany, broken and marred by rough usage but proclaiming their beauty to anyone who might hear the cry.

As a boy, Philip had heard the cry but he had not understood what it meant. He had always loved the attic, always found a certain rest and charm about the place. What it was he had not known. He had thought it was because there he had been able to get away from the disagreeable cackle and scandal of Aunt Peachy. He had not realized that it was not only the quiet of the place that rested his outraged ears but that certain lines of beauty delighted his unconscious eyes and were as potent as the silence in