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Out of this insensate hell come the impossible statues that grin about our cities. Here, cut by the most hideous machinery with a noise like the shrieking of iron on iron, the mantelpieces and washstands of every jerry-built house and obscene emporium of machine-made furniture are sawn out of the rock.
The furniture in the rooms that look upon Pennsylvania Avenue is as fresh as the dogma of Squatter Sovereignty; that in all other rooms dates back to the Ordinance of '87. Some of the apartments exhibit a glaring splendor; the rest show beds, bureaus, and washstands which hard and long usage has polished to a sort of newness.
The plates are always of china, and the tumblers and water-bottles of glass. Knives are always included in the table equipment. The Dressing-room. Here each child has his own little cupboard or shelf. In the middle of the room there are very simple washstands, consisting of tables, on each of which stand a small basin, soap and nail-brush. Against the wall stand little sinks with water-taps.
When a house party is in progress, for instance, and every one comes in from tennis or golf or what not, eager for a bath and fresh clothes, washstands are most convenient. Why shouldn't a washstand be just as attractively furnished as a dressing-table?
The rooms looked clean and comfortable, and the dining-room boasted a table and six chairs, besides several screens and hibatchis. The bedrooms, too, had beds, screens, and washstands; quite an unexpected luxury. Still more so was a strip of glass about half-way up the screens, through which we could admire the fine prospect.
In the bedrooms were winged wardrobes and chests of drawers; dressing tables and washstands, with scrolled legs, nearly always in mahogany; the old four-poster had given way to the Arabian or French bedstead, and this was being gradually replaced by the iron or brass bedsteads, which came in after the Exhibition had shewn people the advantages of the lightness and cleanliness of these materials.
Tommy's room was painted in pale green; and when they had stained all these exciting additions dark green, Bob heaved a great sigh, and yearned audibly for the swift recovery of the influenza patients, so that Tommy could return and behold her new possessions. "We could make washstands," said Mr. Linton, when they had fitted out the two remaining bedrooms.
Massive mahogany wardrobes, bureaus, and washstands are as generations of forebears have used them. Some of the bedrooms once had small rooms opening off from them, one on either side of the fireplace, each having a window. An English kinswoman of the family says that such rooms were called "powdering rooms."
When we brought our furniture from the house in the town, the large front rooms and the open halls used it up so, that it seemed as if there were hardly anything left but bedsteads and washstands and bureaus, the very things that make up-stairs look so very bedroomy. And we wanted pretty places to sit in, as girls always do.
There was the large, airy dining-room, with clean lace curtains, polished floor, and table set with foliage plants in fancy pots; the bedrooms, with single iron beds, reservoir washstands, and no bed linen or towels without extra charge. The next morning we devoted to the few sights of the town.
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