She answered the door--hatted; hatted in henna, that being the season's
chosen colour. A small dark foyer, overcrowded with furniture; a studio
living-room, bright, high-ceilinged, smallish; one entire side was
window. There were Japanese prints, and a baby grand piano, and a lot of
tables, and a davenport placed the way they do it on the stage, with its
back to the room and its arms to the fireplace, and a long table just
behind it, with a lamp on it, and books, and a dull jar thing, just as
you've seen it in the second-act library.
Hosea Brewster twisted his head around and up to gaze at the lofty
ceiling. "Feel's if I was standing at the bottom of a well," he
remarked.
But the hatted one did not hear him. "No; no dining-room," she was
saying briskly. "No, indeed. I always use this gate-legged table. You
see? It pulls out like this. You can easily seat six--eight, in fact."
"Heaven forbid!" in fervent _sotto voce_ from Father Brewster.
"It's an enormous saving in time and labour."
"The--kitchen!" inquired Mrs. Brewster.
The hat waxed playful. "You'll never guess where the kitchen is!" She
skipped across the room. "You see this screen?" They saw it. A really
handsome affair, and so placed at one end of the room that it looked a
part of it. "Come here." They came. The reverse side of the screen was
dotted with hooks, and on each hook hung a pot, a pan, a ladle, a spoon.
And there was the tiny gas range, the infinitesimal ice chest, the
miniature sink.
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