e kitchen.

It was a very nice kitchen, with gas, hot water and cold, ranges and
gas-stoves, and two great cupboards with glass doors through which
all sorts of beautiful serving-dishes shone. Green ivies filled the
window-cases, and geraniums lined the window-sills. A fine old parrot
from the Andes inhabited a large cage with an open door, hanging over
the main window, where the wire netting let in the air from the apple
boughs.

On reaching the platform-stair, Charlie was as astonished as Lucy could
wish.

There sat a little Chinese boy, as it seemed, although at second glance
he looked rather old for a boy. He wore blue clothes and was shelling
peas. His glossy black "pigtail" reached down to the floor, and the
kitten was trying to raise the end of it in her pretty white paws.
As Lucy had said, heavy black silk cords were braided in with the hair,
with handsome tassels.

The parrot had come out of her cage, and was eying the boy and the
kitten, plainly hoping for mischief. Suddenly she caught Charlie's eye,
and with a flap of her wings she cried out to him.

"He's a quare one! Now, isn't he?"

The bird had heard Irish Nora say this a number of times during the day
and had learned the words. Charlie could not help laughing out in
response. With this encouragement Polly came down towards the door of
the cage, and thrust her green and yellow head out into the room. "Now,
isn't he, sure?" cried she, in Nora's own voice.

Nora was sole ruler of this cheerful realm below stairs; the only other
inhabitants of the kitchen were the parrot and the kitten, and now this
Chinese boy. Nora's special work-room was a great pantry with a latticed
window. Near-by a wide door led out into a little garden of apple, pear,
and cherry trees; the garden had a grape-arbor too, which ran from the
door to a roomy cabin. Here was every convenience for washing and
ironing.

Nora was a portly woman, with a round face, large forehead, and a little
nose which seemed to be always laughing. She was a merry soul; and she
used to tell "the children," as Charles and Lucy were called,
"Liliputian stories," tales of the Fairy Schoolmaster of Irish lore.

The Chinese boy did not look up to Polly as she gazed and exclaimed at
him, but shelled his peas.

Presently, however, the pretty kitten whirled the industrious boy's
pigtail around in a circle until it pulled. Then he cast his almond eyes
at her, and addressed her in a tone like the clatter