Page:The Lark - E Nesbit, 1922.djvu/78

Rh elegant room but for its colour—the walls, cupboards, mantelpiece, all were painted a clear gas-green.

"But it's not such a bad background for flowers," Jane told herself, as she opened one of the cupboards to stow away the tea-things. "Hullo!" she added thoughtfully.

For the cupboard, which had been empty at their last visit, now held a tray of Japanese lacquer, delicate blue-and-white Chinese tea-cups, other blue-and-white china, and the most delightful collection of jugs and mugs and pots and vases that Jane had ever seen.

Green Bruges pottery, Welsh lustre, Grès de Flanders, old pewter. Jane looked at the jampots huddled on the floor and laughed. She sat down to laugh more at her ease, and was still sitting and still laughing when Lucilla returned wheeling a bath-chair full of daffodils, forget-me-nots, and big budding boughs.

"If ever there was a fairy godmother," she said, "it's Mr. James Rochester. Look in that cupboard! There's forethought for you! There's delicacy! There's taste! Every kind of possible pot to put flowers in, and not an inch of water for them! We shall have to carry every drop of water for our flowers from Hope Cottage. He might have trusted us with the key of the scullery!"

"He's done better," said Lucilla, carefully laying the flowers on the long table where Jane had spread the kitchen oilcloth. "Come here." She led the way to the window; just at the side, where it could conveniently be reached from the stone doorstep, was a tap, perfectly new, as its own brightness and the bluish bloom of its lead pipes alike testified.

"Is he an angel, or isn't he?" demanded Lucilla. "You get these flowers in water and I'll get some more. Let's set up pots on those wide window4edges each side of the door, and we'll put the little table outside to make a show. I'll go and get some more flowers. And let's put our pinafores on. And put away our hats and coats—they spoil the look