Page:Lippincotts Monthly Magazine-70.djvu/633

Rh ceiling was finished in a mosaic of black and red, with cross-beams of ebony. There was a beautiful tiled hearth and a greats open fireplace, where make-believe logs lay on andirons of old Venetian design. Mrs. Townsend touched a lighted match to the logs.

"You will remember. Miss Kamp, always to light this fire in the evening about five o'clock. Mr. Townsend likes to find it cheery when he gets home to dinner,—that is, when he comes home for dinner."

They passed out of the library into a long, dark hall, in the shadows of which Mrs. Townsend's tall, black-robed figure was lost as she led the way to the bedrooms.

"You will find the whole house very sunny and well ventilated. Miss Kamp," she said, as they stepped into a fairy chamber done in pale blue and white cretonne, with the bed dressed in pale blue silk under white net, which, it was explained, was the guest-chamber.

"And where shall I sleep?" she inquired, following Mrs. Townsend into the adjoining bedroom, a dainty marvel in yellow and white.

"Right there," answered that lady decisively, pointing to one of the twin beds of beautifully wrought brass which stood side by side under one canopy of cowslip yellow silk. "I think you will find this room more comfortable than the blue chamber," she went on, "at least Mr. Townsend and I always found it so."

"And that is my bed?" Kate touched the silken coverlet with her parasol handle.

"Yes, that one. I should just as lief you had the other. It would really make no difference, except that Mr. Townsend is such a crank about sleeping next the wall." Kate bit her lips to conceal a smile. Mrs. Townsend turned up a comer of the bedclothes, disclosing a glimpse of soft white blankets, and eider-down comforters, and snowy, hemstitched sheets.

"These hair mattresses are just new and so are the springs on both beds," explained the Widow. "Mr. Townsend complained about the springs on his bed sinking in the middle and that the old mattress was full of knots."

The dining-room came next for inspection. A big, sombre room it was, dark with Flemish oak and sparkling with the prismatic reflections from a sideboard loaded with cut-glass and silver. Suspended across pegs of natural wood were multitudinous guns and strange Indian war implements. Piled in the comers of the room were sheaves of fancifully wrought fishing-rods. A massive stuffed buffalo's head looked down mildly from above the mantelpiece, while on the opposite wall hung a duplicate of the face which Kate had noticed above the piano.

"And what provision is there for cooking, Mrs. Townsend?** she asked, thinking of her chafing-dish and alcohol teakettle.

"Oh, that is a very simple matter," returned the lady. "Your