crepe-paper lambrequin decorated the mantel-shelf, whose ornaments
were a cup and saucer, a shaving-set, and a pair of conch-shells;
while between the windows was a wash-stand obviously kept for
ornamental purposes, as there was no water in the pitcher and the
basin was cracked. Pinned on the soft plastering of the walls were
florid advertisements of various necessities and luxuries of life,
together with highly colored Scripture texts, and over the mantel
hung a crayon of the once head of the house. The room was cold and
damp. The air in it had not been changed for some time, and as Mrs.
Gibbons stopped and picked up the baby, who at the sound of voices
had crawled into the room, I did not wonder at its croupy cough.

Down the dark and narrow passageway Bettina and I followed our
hostess, and at its end I would have stumbled over a step had I not
been warned in time. The noise made by a box overturned by Bettina
gave the latter opportunity to give me one more injunction.

"Don't promise to do too much right off." The whisper was
uncomfortably clear. "She's the kind who's like a sifter. You have
to be right hard with people like that-- Take care! There's another
step!"




CHAPTER VIII

As we entered the kitchen, a tiny room with one window in it, I
glanced around it as I had done at the front room, the two seeming to
complete the suite occupied by Mrs. Gibbons. My survey was quick and