rs. There were two wooden
sideboards painted brown facing each other down at the dark end, with a
collection of miscellaneous articles on them: a vinegar cruet that had
stood there for years, with remains of vinegar dried up at the bottom;
mustard pots containing a dark and wicked mixture that had once been
mustard; a broken hand-bell used at long-past dinners, to summon
servants long since dead; an old wine register with entries in it of a
quarter of a century back; a mouldy bottle of Worcester sauce, still
boasting on its label that it would impart a relish to viands otherwise
dull; and some charming Dresden china fruit-dishes, adorned with
cheerful shepherds and shepherdesses, incurable optimists, persistently
pleased with themselves and their surroundings through all the days and
nights of all the cold silent years that they had been smiling at each
other in the dark. On the round dinner-table was a pot of lilies of the
valley, enveloped in crinkly pink tissue paper tied round with pink
satin ribbon, with ears of the paper drawn up between the flower-stalks
to produce a pleasing contrast of pink and white.

"Well, it's warm enough here, isn't it?" said Susie, going round the
room and examining these things with an interest far exceeding that
called forth by the art treasures of Berlin.

"Rather," said Letty, answering for everybody, and rubbing her hands.
She frolicked about the room, peeping into all the corners, opening the
cupboards, trying the sofa, and behaving in so frisky a fashion that her
mother, who seldom saw her at home, and knew her only as a naughty
gloomy girl, turned once or twice from the interesting sideboards to
stare at her inquiringly through her lorgnette.

The servant with the surprised eyebrows, who presently brought in the
soup, had put on a pair of white cotton gloves for the ceremony of
waiting, but still wore her felt slippers. She put the plates in a pile
on the edge of the table, murmured something in German, and ran out
again; nor did she come back till she brought the next course, when she
behaved in a precisely similar manner, and continued to do so throughout
the meal; the diners, having no bell, being obliged to sit patiently
during the intervals, until she thought that they might perhaps be ready
for some more.

It was an odd meal, and began with cold chocolate soup with frothy white
things that tasted of vanilla floating about in it. Susie was so much
interested in this soup