Next she had the ornate and hideous black-walnut bed, a product of the “ugly sixties,” that she had long regarded as a patent of respectability, unscrewed, taken up garret, and put under the eaves, from which she unpacked the frame of a slender-limbed four-poster of mellow, unstained mahogany. The Wests had always been of plain farming stock, and had never possessed carved mahogany or beds of the famous pineapple pattern. Dull and lustreless as was the wood, she set the man to work with rags and a compound of beeswax, oil, and turpentine, of which she always kept a jar for brightening spotted furniture. Meanwhile she untied a bundle shaped like a pillow, and carefully unfolded curtains, valance, and tester of dimity, finished with a cross-stitch border, mended carefully here and there, and yellow with age. Looking at the clock, which had not yet struck ten, she turned the fabric over carefully, evidently weighing something in her mind, the while saying aloud, “Yes, I’ll simply scald them, and iron them out with a bit of starch. To bleach them would take weeks, and besides this old dimity will never stand the strain.” While the irons were heating she returned to her reconstructive attempt. The canvas bottom was laced firmly to the bed frame, the bedding adjusted with mathematical precision, and finished with a cheerful patchwork quilt from one of the attic chests. From the floor of her own room she dragged a great rug made of rags in the herring-bone pattern, and spread it over the somewhat faded parlour carpet, which it concealed, all but a narrow border. A work-stand, with fat stomach and many little drawers, and an old chintz-covered English arm-chair, with high back and head-rest flaps at the top, were also brought to light and put in place, while the haircloth parlour set, in its flowered outer covering, suggestive of a gay domino worn over ministerial clothes, was distributed in living room and hall, the long sofa being obliged to seek refuge under the plant window in the angle of the kitchen itself. Twelve o’clock saw the bed draperies ironed and fastened in place, the yellow hue of the dimity harmonizing with the painted woodwork and blending with the wall paper of a cheerful nosegay pattern that Brooke had chosen several years before, much to Miss Keith’s disappointment, as at the time embossed papers with effects of gold, silver, and copper were much in vogue in Gilead. Still not quite satisfied, Miss Keith swept into her apron all the accumulations of little meaningless nothings that covered table and mantel-shelf. Seeking for something with which to replace them, she gathered half a dozen books from the old desk case in the living room, and set a pair of iron candlesticks as sentinels on the corners of the mantel-shelf, to guard a row of polished shells of various sorts.