Page:While Caroline Was Growing.djvu/98

 great opal tinted globes swung on dull brass chains; they swayed ever so slightly when one watched them closely.

"This is my favorite room, Duchess," said Caroline, "isn't it yours?"

"Do you really think I look like one?" returned the lady, "the only duchess I ever saw was fat—horribly fat. It is a very handsome library, of course."

"Then she didn't look like a duchess, that's all," Caroline explained. "What I like about this library is, it's so clean. And you can pull the chairs out and show those big, shiny yellow ones on the bottom shelf."

"Of course; why not?" said the Duchess, dropping into a great carved chair with griffins' heads on the top.

"Why, you can't do that at Uncle Joe's," Caroline confided, sitting on a small griffin stool at the lady's feet, "because General gets at the bottom row and smears 'em. You see he's only two, and you can't blame him, but he licks himself dreadfully and then rubs it on the backs. He marks them, too, inside, with a pencil or a hatpin,