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hardly have looked warm and comfortable. On the outer corner of this,
half facing the fire, and half on one side of it, was an old oak
arm-chair, made of oak throughout, but with a well-worn cushion on
the seat of it, in which it was the miller's custom to sit when the
work of the day was done. In this chair no one else would ever sit,
unless Sam would do so occasionally, in bravado, and as a protest
against his father's authority. When he did so his mother would be
wretched, and his sister lately had begged him to desist from the
sacrilege. Close to this was a little round deal table, on which
would be set the miller's single glass of gin and water, which would
be made to last out the process of his evening smoking, and the
candle, by the light of which, and with the aid of a huge pair of
tortoise-shell spectacles, his wife would sit and darn her husband's
stockings. She also had her own peculiar chair in this corner, but
she had never accustomed herself to the luxury of arms to lean on,
and had no cushion for her own comfort. There were various dressers,
tables, and sideboards round the room, and a multiplicity of dishes,
plates, and bowls, all standing in their proper places. But though
the apartment was called a kitchen,--and, in truth, the cookery for
the family was done here,--there was behind it, opening out to the
rear, another kitchen in which there was a great boiler, and a huge
oven never now used. The necessary but unsightly doings of kitchen
life were here carried on, out of view. He, indeed, would have been
fastidious who would have hesitated, on any score of cleanliness or
niceness, to sit and eat at the long board on which the miller's
dinner was daily served, or would have found it amiss to sit at that
fire and listen to the ticking of the great mahogany-cased clock,
which stood in the corner of the room. On the other side of the broad
opening passage Mrs. Brattle had her parlour. Doubtless this parlour
added something to the few joys of her life; though how it did so,
or why she should have rejoiced in it, it would be very difficult
to say. She never entered it except for the purpose of cleaning and
dusting. But it may be presumed that it was a glory to her to have a
room carpeted, with six horsehair chairs, and a round table, and a
horsehair sofa, and an old mirror over the fireplace, and a piece of
worsted-work done by her daughter and framed like a picture, hanging
up on one of the walls. But the