Fancy! Michael has given me the cottage. Isn’t it too sweet of him? I was quite overcome when the lawyer said that the deeds were to be in my name. I have never had anything of my own like that before, except £2 a year paid quarterly, that an old cousin left me. When the lawyer had congratulated me on my elevation to the position of a landed proprietor, he said, ’And now, my dear young lady, I have another piece of news which will, I think, make you an even more radiant vision than you are at the moment.’ ’Oh, lor!’ Ross whispered, ’that’s another 13/4 for poor old Michael; the larger the lie, Meg, the bigger the bill!’ And then the lawyer told me that all the family silver and the old furniture had been stored all these years by daddy’s orders for me if I cared to have them. My brother and I were so excited that we could hardly stop to say ’good-bye’ to our legal adviser, but tumbled head-first downstairs and into a taxi. Ross exhorted the Jehu to drive furiously to the Furniture Depository, where I found all my treasures, all the things that in the old days made home, that had acquired a special value from their association quite apart from their intrinsic worth. I sat in the chair of the nine devils and cried for the days when mother used the things, wept because daddy had been so thoughtful, and because I badly wanted to hear him say the old joke I loved as a kiddie, ’Oh, can’t you see the ninth devil? I can!’ I found in store the eight old wheel-back chairs which were used in the servants’ hall at home and the two arm-chairs to match, which were always set at either end of the long table for the cook and parlourmaid. Woe betide any lesser lights that dared to sit in those seats of the mighty! Fashion changes rapidly, however, and they will be our best, oh, very best dining-room chairs, with little flat cushions added, perhaps, for comfort. Then there is mother’s grandmother’s gate leg table, it used to stand in the hall for cards and letters, but that will be used for us to dine at. I seem to see the flowers on it and the little pools of light made by the glass and silver and the soft reflection of the shaded candles on the oak.