l and balustrade of black
walnut wound gracefully up to a companion hall above. Piloting the
others around this, Wrinkle pushed open a big, white door and led them
into the parlor. It was really a spacious room of good design, the walls
and woodwork of which were ivory-white. It was, however, furnished with
execrable taste. There was an old-fashioned rosewood piano, a row of
modern bookcases of oak, rocking-chairs of ancient mahogany, cheap oil
landscapes in cheaper gilt frames, a worn carpet of shrieking colors and
a design which maddened the vision. There was one spot which would have
soothed the trained eye--it was the wide mantelpiece, on which stood a
quaint, glass-doored clock and a pair of tall, brass candlesticks of
simple form. The fireplace was deep and wide and held a pair of fine,
old brass dogs with an appropriate open-work fender.

"I jest want you to take a glance at that big lookin'-glass." Wrinkle
pointed at a fine gilt-edged pier-glass which reached from the floor to
the ceiling and filled all the space between the two windows at the end
of the room. "I'm callin' yore attention to it so you won't be fooled
like I was when I fust saw it. They had the funeral in here, an' me an'
Ma was axed to set over thar agin the wall. Well, you may believe me or
not, but I thought the lookin'-glass was a wide door into another room
the same size as this; an' all the time the folks was gatherin' I was
watchin' it, for it was fillin' up an' I couldn't make out whar the
folks come from. Then all at once I was scared mighty nigh out o' my
socks, for the crowd sorter shuffled, to make room, an' I seed another
coffin. If I'd been a drinkin' man I'd 'a' been sure I had the jimmies.
I wanted to p'int it out to Ma, but I was afeard it might go hard with
'er, for she's a believer in hobgoblins, an' might 'a' raised a noise.
So I jest set thar wonderin' who else could be dead, an' why I hadn't
heard about it, an' thinkin' maybe that it was the style to bury a rich
man in two boxes, though they looked to me like they was the same size
an' had the same trimmin's, an' was piled up the same way with flowers.
Then I said my prayers in dead earnest, for I seed Het come in on the
preacher's arm facin' me in t'other room, while they was walkin' with
the'r backs to me in this un. I reckon I'd a been fooled till now if the
preacher hadn't begun to hold forth. I could see two parsons as plain as
life, but only heard one voice, an' so I dis