Elizabeth's room had been set to rights for the accommodation of the
visitor, so that it suited most people's ideas of comfort better just
then, than in its usual state. A number of books and papers had been
cleared from the table, to leave it free for Anne's toilette
apparatus, and a heap of school girls' frocks and tippets, which had
originally been piled up on two chairs, but, daily increasing in
number, had grown top-heavy, fallen down and encumbered the floor,
had that morning been given away, so that there was at least room to
sit down. Ehzabeth's desk and painting box were banished to the top
of her chest-of-drawers, where her looking-glass stood in a dark
corner, being by no means interesting to her. Near the window was
her book-case, tolerably well supplied with works both English and
foreign, and its lower shelf containing a double row of brown-paper
covered volumes, and many-coloured and much soiled little books,
belonging to the lending library. The walls were hung with
Elizabeth's own works, for the most part more useful than ornamental.
There were genealogical and chronological charts of Kings and
Kaisars, comparisons of historical characters, tables of Christian
names and their derivations, botanical lists, maps, and drawings--all
in such confusion, that once, when Helen attempted to find the Pope
contemporary with Edward the First, she asked Elizabeth why she had
written the Pope down as Leo Nonus Cardinal, on which she was
informed, with a sufficient quantity of laughter, that the word in
question was the name of a flower, Leonurus Cardiaca, looking like
anything but what it was intended for in Elizabeth's writing, and
that Pope Martin the Fourth was to be found on the other side of the
Kings of France and Spain, and the portrait of Charles the First.
The chimney-piece was generally used as a place of refuge for all
small things which were in danger of being thrown away if left loose
on the table; but, often forgotten in their asylum, had accumulated