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She visited certain shops that she knew of queer little, quaint, out-of-the-way shops quite pokey little places; but from their depths she managed to extract one or two round tables, one or two easy-chairs, a few brackets, which could be easily converted into book-shelves, a certain sofa, with not too hard a back, a couple of fenders, some fire-irons, some cups and saucers, some dinner plates.
Almost directly afterwards I heard the loud clatter of fire-irons from somewhere away in the basement, a door banged, and then something, or someone, began to ascend the stairs. Up, up, up came the footsteps, until I could see first of all a bluish light, then the top of a head, then a face, white and luminous, staring up at me. A few more steps, and the whole thing was disclosed to view.
I moved my feet and kicked the fender, the fire-irons jangled together and he went on: "I ought not to have said that, it is my blundering way to say the thing I oughtn't; what I meant was that Oxford is not very liberal to a man like I am, who is here by hard work, and not because his fathers and grandfathers were here before him.
I don't think I should have danced so madly on the table to the horrible music of the fire-irons. And I do know I should not have insulted a gentleman. Another thing' Theo skilfully reserved her best shot for the last 'I also am quite sure I shouldn't have set on him when he was single-handed and I had a partner, as I said before.
There were one or two robberies real bona fide robberies; men had up before the magistrates and committed for trial and that seemed to make us all afraid of being robbed; and for a long time, at Miss Matty's, I know, we used to make a regular expedition all round the kitchens and cellars every night, Miss Matty leading the way, armed with the poker, I following with the hearth-brush, and Martha carrying the shovel and fire-irons with which to sound the alarm; and by the accidental hitting together of them she often frightened us so much that we bolted ourselves up, all three together, in the back-kitchen, or store-room, or wherever we happened to be, till, when our affright was over, we recollected ourselves and set out afresh with double valiance.
Now it is very right to keep the hearth clean and the candlestick bright, but it is very wrong so to set one's affections on a hearth or a candlestick, as to make one's self unhappy if any trifling accident happens to them; and if Rebecca had been as careful to keep her heart without spot, or her life without blemish, as she was to keep her fire-irons free from either, she would have been held up in this history, not as a warning, but as a pattern, and in that case her nicety would have come in for a part of the praise.
Grey was coarse and insensible; no blow took effect on her. But poor Madame Joubert! I see her yet in her raging passions, when we had driven her to extremities spilt our tea, crumbled our bread and butter, tossed our books up to the ceiling, and played a charivari with the ruler and desk, the fender and fire-irons. Theodore, do you remember those merry days?"
You promised me you'd see me through this show, and you know as well as I do, Mrs. Shaw can no more act than those fire-irons." "But I " Milly was about to say "I've never acted in my life" when she remembered that she knew less than any one in her acquaintance what she had or had not done in that recent life which was not hers.
Now and then he would make a motion with his feet as if he were running quickly backward upstairs, and would tread on the edge of the fender, so that the fire-irons went flying and the buttered-bun dishes crashed against each other in the hearth.
But it was worth purchasing, even at the heavy price of the Latin Grammar, the happiness of seeing the bright light in the parlor at home, as the gig passed noiselessly over the snow-covered bridge; the happiness of passing from the cold air to the warmth and the kisses and the smiles of that familiar hearth, where the pattern of the rug and the grate and the fire-irons were "first ideas" that it was no more possible to criticise than the solidity and extension of matter.
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