Page:The history of Mr. Polly.djvu/181

 It was unfortunate that Miriam never took to the house from the first. She did not like it when she saw it, and liked it less as she explored it. “There’s too many stairs,” she said, “and the coal being indoors will make a lot of work.”

“Didn’t think of that,” said Mr. Polly, following her round.

“It’ll be a hard house to keep clean,” said Miriam.

“White paint’s all very well in its way,” said Miriam, “but it shows the dirt something fearful. Better ’ave ’ad it nicely grained.”

“There’s a kind of place here,” said Mr. Polly, “where we might have some flowers in pots.”

“Not me,” said Miriam. “I’ve ’ad trouble enough with Minnie and ’er musk”

They stayed for a week in a cheap boarding house before they moved in. They had bought some furniture in Stamton, mostly second-hand, but with new cheap cutlery and china and linen, and they had supplemented this from the Fishbourne shops. Miriam, relieved from the hilarious associations of home, developed a meagre and serious quality of her own, and went about with knitted brows pursuing some ideal of “’aving everything right.” Mr. Polly gave himself to the arrangement of the shop with a certain zest, and whistled a good deal until Miriam appeared and said that it went through her head. So soon as he had taken the shop he had filled the window with aggressive posters announcing in no measured terms that he was going to open, and now he was