Page:I Know a Secret (1927).pdf/152



F COURSE it was a great day when we got gas in the Roslyn Estates. But Fourchette still liked to remember and talk about old times before the kitchen was rebuilt and enlarged and the beautiful big gas stove put in. She often spoke of those long winter evenings of her youth, when the coal range filled the kitchen with a warm steady glow. She used to lie, drowsed with supper and comfort, in the corner behind the hot water boiler. Outside there was the frosty song of wind in the bare trees, and the glitter of winter stars. The hours went softly by. Sometimes there was the stir of coals in the grate, the tinkle of a falling cinder as the fire settled itself for the night—like a child turning over and dropping her doll out of bed as she falls asleep. The alarm clock went on steadily with its joggling count, trickery, trickery, trickery. Floors creaked overhead, the hot water rustled in the tall boiler. Fourchette lay so peaceful in