this queerly-named house was—is still,
perhaps—to be found there is no particular
reason for telling; whence came this same queer name
will be told in good time. The parlour suited
its name anyway better far than it would that
of “drawing-room,” which would be given
it nowadays. There was a round table in the middle;
there were high-backed mahogany chairs against the
wall, polished by age and careful rubbing to that stage
of dark shininess which makes even mahogany pleasant
to the eye, and with seats of flowering silk damask
whose texture must have been very good to be
so faded without being worn; there were spindle-legged
side-tables holding inlaid “papier-mache”
desks and rose-wood work-boxes, and two or three carved
cedar or sandal-wood cases of various shapes.
And, most tempting of all to my mind, there were glass-doored
cupboards in the wall, with great treasures of handleless
teacups and very fat teapots, not to speak of bowls
and jugs of every form and size; and everything, from
the Indian box with the ivory chessmen to the china
Turk with his long pipe of green spun-glass, sitting
cross-legged on the high mantelpiece between a very
sentimental lady and gentleman, also of china, who
occupied its two ends,—everything
was exactly and precisely in its own place, in what
had been its own place ever since the day, now more
than thirty years ago, when Grandpapa, the tall old
gentleman, had retired from the army on half-pay and
come to settle down at Arbitt Lodge for the rest of
his life with Grandmamma and their son Marmaduke.
A very small Marmaduke, for he was the only one left
of a pretty flock who, one after the other, had but
hovered down into the world for a year or two to spread
their tiny wings and take flight again, leaving two
desolate hearts behind them. And in this same
parlour at Arbitt Lodge had that little Marmaduke
learned to walk, and then to run, to gaze with admiring
eyes on the treasures in the glass cupboards, to play
bo-peep behind the thick silken curtains, even in his
time faded to a withered-leaf green, to poke his tiny
nose into the bowl of pot-pourri on the centre table,
which made him sneeze just exactly as—ah!
but I am forgetting—never mind, I may as
well finish the sentence—just exactly as
it made “us” sneeze now!
After the tap came a kind of little pattering and scratching, like baby taps, not quite sure of their own existence; then, had Grandpapa’s and Grandmamma’s ears been a very little sharper, they could not but have heard a small duel in words.
“You, bruvver, my fingers’ bones is tired.”
“I told you, sister,” reproachfully, “us should always bring old Neddy’s nose downstairs with us. They never hear us tapping.”
Then a faint sigh or two and a redoubled assault, crowned with success. Grandmamma, whom after all I am not sure but that I have maligned in calling her deaf—the taps were so very faint really!—Grandmamma looks up from her netting, and in a thin but clear voice calls out, “Come in!”