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His wife snatched it out of his hand, opened it, and drew out some bank-notes, put them back again immediately, and, closing the pocketbook, stepped across the room to my poor mother's little walnut-wood book-case, the only bit of valuable furniture we had in the house. "What are you going to do there?" asked Mr. Knifton, following his wife. Mrs.
Claude liked this room, especially when his father was not there. The old carpet, the faded chairs, the secretary book-case, the spotty engraving with all the scenes from Pilgrim's Progress that hung over the sofa, these things made him feel at home. Ralph was always proposing to re-furnish the room in Mission oak, but so far Claude and his mother had saved it.
Left by myself again, I looked at the book-case looked at it attentively for the first time. It was a handsome piece of furniture in ancient carved oak, and it stood against the wall which ran parallel with the hall of the house.
In the family "keeping-room," as it is termed, he will remember the staid, respectable old book-case, with its glass doors, where Rollin's History,* Milton's Paradise Lost, Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, and Scott's Family Bible, stand side by side in decorous order, with multitudes of other books, equally solemn and respectable.
He has a great desire, however, to read such works in the old libraries and chapter-houses to which they belong; for he thinks a black-letter volume reads best in one of those venerable chambers where the light struggles through dusty lancet windows and painted glass; and that it loses half its zest if taken away from the neighbourhood of the quaintly carved oaken book-case and Gothic reading-desk.
In one of the rooms we should see a barometer and thermometer hanging against the wall, an old clock over the mantel-piece, a sabre and pistols, and a book-case containing many choice and valuable books. To the rear of the house we should find a small kitchen built of logs, and containing the usual culinary utensils.
Even my small knowledge of Art told me that the work was clever, and I wondered why it should have lain so long neglected, when as a mere ornament it was valuable. It must have been placed in the book-case years ago by someone, and forgotten. I replaced it among its dusty companions, and sat down once more to my work.
It, too, was crammed with scientific reports, oddments of out-of-the-way lore, and travels. But here a profusion of war-books and official documents showed another bent of the owner's mind. Over the book-case hung two German gasmasks. They seemed, in the half-dusk, to glower down through their round, empty eyeholes like sinister devil-fish awaiting prey.
Cherry was favoured with a glance at Lance's little corner, with the old-fashioned black oak bedstead, solid but unsteady table and stool, the equally old press, and the book-case he had made himself with boards begged from his friend the carpenter. A photograph and drawing or two, and a bat, completed the plenishing. She thought it very uncomfortable, but Lance called it his castle; and Mr.
"Susie appears to have an enviable acquaintance with the celestial regions and the abode of royalty, Jessie." "Yes, miss; of course, it's only what she've read about 'em. And she says that Sir Stephen that's the gentleman as owns it all is a kind of king, with his own body servant and a a I forget what they call him; it's a word like a book-case." "A secretary," suggested Ida.