The last touch and achievement was more of the dun-gray carpet, like that in their bedroom, and more of the scarlet and black stair-border, made into a rug, which was spread down when work was over, and rolled up under the table when dinner was to dish, or a wash was going on. They had been with Mrs. Scherman a month before they ventured upon that asking. When it was finished, Sin brought her husband down after tea one night, to look at it. "It is the most fascinating room in the house," she said. There was a side gas-light over the white-topped table, burning brightly. Upon the table were work-baskets, and a volume from the Public Library. The lounge was just turned out from the wall a little, towards it, and opposite stood the round rocking-chair. Cheeps, in his cage at the farther window, was asleep in a yellow ball, his head under his wing. Bel was hanging the last dish-towel upon a little folding-horse in the chimney corner, and they could hear Kate singing up-stairs to a gentle clatter of the dishes that she was putting away from the dining-room use. "It looks as a kitchen ought to," said Mr. Scherman. "As my grandmother's used to look; as if all the house-comfort came from it." "It isn't a place to forbid children out of, is it?" asked Asenath. "I should think the only condition would be their own best behavior," returned her husband. "They're almost always good down here," said Bel. "Children like to be where things are doing. They always feel put away, out of the good times, I think, in a nursery." "My housekeeping is all turning round on a new pivot," said Sin to Frank, after they were seated again up-stairs. "Don't take up the 'Skelligs' yet; I want to tell you. If I thought the pivot would really _stay_, there are two or three more things I should do. And one of them is,--I'd have the nursery--a day-nursery--down-stairs; that is, if I could coax you into it." "It seems the new pivot is two very large 'ifs,'" said Frank, laughing. "And not much space to turn in, either. Would you take the cellar, or build out? And if so, where?" "I'd take the dining-room, Frank; and eat in the back parlor." "I wish you would. I don't like dining-rooms. I was brought up to a back parlor."