old-fashioned cabinet desk, and Lenny gaining a reluctant consent to
his request to go down to "Dutch's" house, where he and Dutch would
play lotto.

"Why doesn't Dutch Harrison ever come here to play lotto?" Martie
asked maliciously. "You go to Dutch's because it's right down near
Bonestell's and Mallon's and the Pool Parlour!" Leonard shot her a
threatening glance, accepted a half-permission, snatched his cap and
was gone.

The parlour was large, cold, and uncomfortable, its woodwork brown,
its walls papered in dark green. Lydia lighted the fire, and as
Leonard had made his escape, Belle brought up a supplementary hodful
of coal. Martie lighted two of the four gas jets, and settled down
to solitaire. Sally read "Idylls of the King." Lydia and her mother
began to sew, the older woman busy with mending a hopelessly worn
table-cloth, the younger one embroidering heavy linen with hundreds
of knots. Lydia had been making a parasol top for more than a year.
They gossiped in low, absorbed tones of the affairs of friends and
neighbours; the endless trivial circumstances so interesting to the
women of a small town.

There were two gas jets, also on hinged arms, beside the white
marble fireplace, and one of these Sally lighted, taking her
father's comfortable chair. A hood of thin plum-coloured flannel,
embroidered in coloured flowers, was on the mantel, with shells, two
pink glass vases, and a black marble clock. On the old square piano,
where yellowing sheets of music were heaped, there was a cover of
the same flannel. Albums and gift books, Schiller's "Bell" with
Flaxman plates, and Dante's "Inferno" with Dore's illustrations--lay