u never go there?" asked Minora, jerking her head in the direction
of the house.

"Sometimes. She is a very busy woman, and I should feel I was in the way
if I went often."

"It would be interesting to see another North German interior," said
Minora; "and I should be obliged if you would take me.

"But I can't fall upon her suddenly with a strange girl," I protested;
"and we are not at all on such intimate terms as to justify my taking
all my visitors to see her."

"What do you want to see another interior for?" asked Irais. "I can tell
you what it is like; and if you went nobody would speak to you, and if
you were to ask questions, and began to take notes, the good lady would
stare at you in the frankest amazement, and think Elizabeth had brought
a young lunatic out for an airing. Everybody is not as patient as
Elizabeth," added Irais, anxious to pay off old scores.

"I would do a great deal for you, Miss Minora," I said, "but I can't do
that."

"If we went," said Irais, "Elizabeth and I would be placed with great
ceremony on a sofa behind a large, polished oval table with a crochetmat
in the centre--it has got a crochet-mat in the centre, hasn't it?" I
nodded. "And you would sit on one of the four little podgy, buttony,
tasselly red chairs that are ranged on the other side of the table
facing the sofa. They are red, Elizabeth?" Again I nodded. "The floor
is painted yellow, and there is no carpet except a rug in front of the
sofa. The paper is dark chocolate colour, almost black; that is in order
that after years of use the dirt may not show, and the room need not be
done up. Dirt is like wickedness, you see, Miss Minora--its being there
never matters; it is only when it shows so much as to be apparent to
everybody that we are ashamed of it. At intervals round the high walls
are chairs, and cabinets with lamps on them, and in one corner is a
great white cold stove--or is it majolica?" she asked, turning to me.

"No, it is white."

"There are a great many lovely big windows, all ready to let in the air
and the sun, but they are as carefully covered with brown lace curtains
under heavy stuff ones as though a whole row of houses were just
opposite, with peering eyes at every window trying to look in, instead
of there only being fields, and trees, and birds. No fire, no sunlight,
no books, no flowers; but a consoling smell of red cabbage coming up
under the door, mixed, in due season, with soapsuds."

"When did