Page:Hollyhock house; a story for girls (IA hollyhockhousest00tagg).pdf/102

84 to remember such a little thing as Mark’s going when our mother is coming,” Jane added. “He’ll be here every spare minute, anyway.”

For two weeks Hollyhock House spun out of all likeness to its calm self. The New York dealer had furnished a paper for the south bedroom that differed only in a small detail from the sample which Jane had mailed him. Paper hangers, painters, and upholsterers worked steadily to restore the room to the appearance it had worn eighteen years before. The odour of paint dominated the early June odours, which crept in from the garden, and the bustle, untidiness, and confusion of workmen in the house left little time or thought for the loveliness which, this year, as in all years, the beautiful garden offered its young owners.

But at last the south chamber was done. It shone in the whiteness of its new paint, and blossomed, a rival to the garden, in its new wall paper, with apple blossoms rioting everywhere between its floor and ceiling. The low rocker in which, seventeen years ago, the girl mother had stilled her first baby, Mary, was covered in a chintz of browns and greens and pinks, repeated on the seats of the other chairs. Delicate curtains of point d’esprit fluttered from beneath the