Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/173



, sure enough, when they went over the house again, the two girls found their enthusiasm reviving. It was, as Jane said, just the place for Pigs. If it had been designed for the accommodation of paying guests it could not have been designed better. The large sitting-rooms; the many bed-rooms, most of them with their own dressing-rooms, or at least powdering-rooms, attached; the big, cool kitchen where meals could be prepared without fuss or confusion; the really excellent larders, dairies, and pantries all promised success in the new venture. Two maids would be needed, or perhaps three, and a cook. Mrs. Doveton was a beautiful cook, and there were such heaps of rooms that it would be quite easy to let her have her son with her, and then she could give up the maisonette, whose inconveniences haunted her conversation, and live as she constantly said she wanted to live—where there was a bit of green to look out on. The girls closed the shop early so as to catch Mrs. Doveton before she left Hope Cottage and bring her to see the house. She said wouldn't to-morrow do, there was a bit of ironing she rather wanted to get on with, but when they said that to-morrow wouldn't do, and she must come then and there to see their beautiful new house, she said she supposed young ladies must be humoured, took the irons off, put on her hat and jacket—she always wore a jacket in the street—and came with them. They took her all over Cedar Court, asking her many times if it wasn't perfectly lovely, and she said as many times that it was very nice, she was sure.

Then they took her to the garden room and made tea for