Pepper, and the
Hunts. Father generally wanted to be quiet when he came home, because he
works very hard at Hull. Also my aunts aren't very strong. A house takes
up a lot of time if you do it properly. Our servants were always bad,
and so Aunt Lucy used to do a good deal in the kitchen, and Aunt Clara,
I think, spent most of the morning dusting the drawing-room and going
through the linen and silver. Then there were the dogs. They had to be
exercised, besides being washed and brushed. Now Sandy's dead, but Aunt
Clara has a very old cockatoo that came from India. Everything in
our house," she exclaimed, "comes from somewhere! It's full of old
furniture, not really old, Victorian, things mother's family had or
father's family had, which they didn't like to get rid of, I suppose,
though we've really no room for them. It's rather a nice house," she
continued, "except that it's a little dingy--dull I should say." She
called up before her eyes a vision of the drawing-room at home; it was
a large oblong room, with a square window opening on the garden. Green
plush chairs stood against the wall; there was a heavy carved book-case,
with glass doors, and a general impression of faded sofa covers, large
spaces of pale green, and baskets with pieces of wool-work dropping out
of them. Photographs from old Italian masterpieces hung on the walls,
and views of Venetian bridges and Swedish waterfalls which members of
the family had seen years ago.
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