he
weather's chilly.'

It was a dear room--beautiful deep windows with seats round them, and
nice old cupboards, one with glass doors, and a queer kind of sofa with
a straight-up back and a long red cushion. The chairs were plain wood
and everything was plain, but not a bit common; ever so much nicer than
lodgings, you know, like what there are sometimes at the seaside with
horrid flowery carpets all staring, and mirrors with gilt frames, and
shaky little chiffoniers that won't hold anything. Here it was all solid
and comfortable; there was nothing we could break supposing we did
'rampage' about, as nurse calls it. Even the kitchen fireplace was nice;
I thought to myself what jolly toffy we could make on a wet day.

'Oh, this _is_ a nice room,' said mums; 'nothing could be better.'

Mrs. Parsley did look pleased, and in a minute or two she opened a door
we hadn't noticed. It looked like a part of the wooden panels, and there
was a funny little stair.

'This leads to the small bedroom, ma'am,' she said. 'There's a door
through it to the other two, but there's also doors to them on the
landing over the big kitchen, which you get to up the regular staircase.
But if the young gentleman was to have this room it might be a
convenience for him to get to it without having to go all the way round
and pass through the other bedrooms.'

It was a funny little room--very jolly though,--just a bed and a chest
of drawers, a toilet-table, and a shelf across a corner for a
washhand-stand, and two chairs. But I liked it very much, and the two
big bedrooms that we got into through it were really very nice--carpets
in the middle, and in one a regular polished bedstead with curtains. _I_
wouldn't have liked it, but, as it turned out, Anne did. And it was very
big; plenty of room for her and Maud too. In the other room there were
two smaller beds; one would do for Serry, and the other for nurse.

And everything was as clean as clean--lavendery too--not a bit fusty or
musty.

'Really,' said mums, 'nothing could be nicer. I suppose these are all
the rooms you have to spare, Mrs. Parsley?'

There was one other, as tiny as mine, but it was at the opposite side of
the house. Still mother thought it would do for me _if_ Hebe was able
to come at the end of the time, and then nurse could have mine.

'And if I could run down myself for a night or so,' she said, 'I daresay
Serry and Maud could sleep together; there'd be plenty of room for me