Ann Holland
quickly guessed there was something important to be told, and she opened
the half door to her neighbor.
"Come in, Mrs. Brown," she said; "Richard's not at home yet."
She led the way into the room behind the shop, as pleasant a place as
any in all Upton, except for the scent of the leather, which she had
grown so used to that its absence would have seemed a loss. It was a
kitchen spotlessly clean, with an old-fashioned polished dresser and
shelves above it filled with pewter plates and dishes, upon which every
gleam of firelight twinkled. A tall mahogany clock, with its head
against the ceiling, and the round, good-humored face of a full moon
beaming above its dial-plate, stood in one corner; while in the opposite
one there was a corner cupboard with glass doors, filled with antique
china cups and tea-pots, and a Chinese mandarin that never ceased to
roll its head to and fro helplessly. Bean-pots of flowers, as Ann
Holland called them, covered the broad window-sill; and a screen,
adorned with fragments of old ballads, and with newspaper announcements
of births, deaths, and marriages among Upton people, was drawn across
the outer door, which opened into a little garden at the back of the
house.
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