United States or El Salvador ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Drake led Magdalen first to the pantry, and next to the linen-room, installing her, with all due formality, in her own domestic dominions. This ceremony completed, the new parlor-maid was taken upstairs, and was shown the dining-room, which opened out of the corridor on the first floor. Here she was directed to lay the cloth, and to prepare the table for one person only Mr.
The ward proper has certain additions: a kitchen with gas-stove and geyser; a sink-room with geyser and cleansing apparatus of special pattern; a bathroom with geyser; lavatories; a small room for the isolation of a patient on the danger-list; a linen-room; and cupboards. All these are packed neatly under that one rectangular corrugated roof which looked so ugly and so unpromising from outside.
A "linen master" having been detailed, a "linen-room" set apart and shelved, the articles were placed upon large tables to be sorted and piled upon the shelves, ready for reclamation by the convalescents and others who were not too ill to identify their own. Some of these clothes were torn and buttonless. My detailed men could not sew.
The store as it stood, shelves, counters, and all, became the "linen-room," and was piled from floor to ceiling with bedding and clean clothing. The back "shed-room" was the matron's own. A rough table, planed on the top, stood in the centre. With the exception of one large rocking-chair, kindly donated by a lady of Ringgold, Georgia, boxes served for chairs.
Next day the linen-room was peopled by bright, energetic ladies, at whose hands the convalescents received their renovated garments with words of warm sympathy and encouragement that cheered their hearts.
She kept the maids stirring, and the footmen to their duty; had an eye over the claret in the cellar, and the oats and hay in the stable; saw to the salting and pickling, the potatoes and the turf-stacking, the pig-killing and the poultry, the linen-room and the bakehouse, and the ten thousand minutiae of a great establishment.
"But presently another mood seized her; she turned from the table, called for her rosary, and said to Nencia: 'The fine weather has made me neglect my devotions. I must say a litany before I dine. "She ordered the women out and barred the door, as her custom was; and Nencia and my grandmother went down-stairs to work in the linen-room.
At last she insisted on taking Santerre and Mathieu into the linen-room, saying that the latter must certainly have some knowledge of these matters, although he declared the contrary. Only Gaston and Lucie were formally forbidden to follow. "You are not wanted," said their mother, "so stay here and play.
Her walk reminded one of a ship in a storm, and her head, which was always covered with an enormous white cap, whose ribbons fluttered down her back, seemed to traverse the horizon from North to South and from South to North, at each limp. I adored Mother Bellflower. As soon as I was up I used to go into the linen-room, where I found her installed at work, with a foot-warmer under her feet.
Then he came back to me and picked up my work which had fallen from my hands without my having noticed it. He kissed his sister, and before he went, he said, looking at me, "I shall see you to-morrow." Next morning Madame Deslois came into the linen-room. She came straight to me, and was very rude.
Word Of The Day