Built like a coach, each room opening off a
strip of hallway, it was a scoured chromo of Victoria's age of horrors.
The brilliantly flower-splashed wall paper and carpeting. A front room
that smelled and pricked of horsehair. The little patch of dining room
brightened by a red tablecloth, two canaries, and a window-sill array of
turnips sprouting in bottles. The rush of bead portieres as you walked
through them. Hassocks. A freshly washed-and-ironed ribbon bow on a
chair back. Pillow shams. Nottingham-lace curtains with sham drapes
woven into them. A pair of bisque pugs.
The room to let was the size of a freight elevator and crammed with a
fine old walnut bed when there was scarcely room for a cot. Also an
overflow of curlicue divan, and a washstand. It was clean to coolness,
as if the very air were washed, but, entering it, Mrs. Neugass flecked
an imaginary dust particle from the divan with her apron, then wrapping
it muff fashion about her hands.
"It ain't big, but it's gumfortable."
"Indeed it is!" said Lilly, sniffing in appreciatively.
"We doan' got to rent this room, miss. It's our first time.
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