Up in an elevator they sped, and alighting at one of the upper floors
Uncle Bob led the way into a room rich with silken hangings and rare
oriental rugs; all about this room were vases, plates, lamp-shades, and
ornaments of beautiful hues. There were great golden glass bowls
glinting with elusive lights of violet, blue, and yellow; there were
vases opalescent with burning flecks of orange and copper; there were
green glass plates and globes which shaded into tones of blue as
delicate as mother-of-pearl.
"Oh!" sighed Jean rapturously, "I never saw anything so lovely! Look at
these plates, Uncle Bob, do look at them. How ever did they get the
color? It is like a sunset."
"The Tiffanys, like Blaschka the flower modeler, are not telling the
world how they get their results. Rest assured, however, many and many
hours must have been spent in experiments before such artistic products
could be obtained."
"Think of the struggles with color and with firing," Giusippe murmured.
"And the pieces that must have been spoiled!" put in Jean.
"But think of the triumph of at last taking from the lehrs such gems as
these! The results which air, soil, and age have by chance produced in
the ancient Egyptian and Graeco-Syrian glass the Tiffanys have created
in a modern ware. It is a great achievement, and a royal contribution
to the art of the world."
The children would have been glad to linger for a much longer time in
the vast shop had not the chime of a clock warned them that the noon
hour, when they were to meet Miss Cartright, was approaching. She had
promised to lunch with them all at the Holland House.
Yes, she looked just the same, "only prettier," Jean whispered to
Giusippe. Certainly there was an added glow of beauty on her cheek and
a new sweetness in her smile. How glad she was to see them! And how
glad, glad, glad they were to see her. Miraculously from somewhere
Uncle Bob produced a great bunch of violets which she fastened in her
gown and then amid a confusion of merry chatter and laughter they went
in to luncheon.
It was indeed a royal luncheon!
Uncle Bob seemed inclined to order everything on the menu, and it was
not until Miss Cartright protested that not only the young people but
she herself would be ill, that he was to be stayed. And what a joke it
was when the waiter bent down and asked her if both her son and
daughter would take some of the hot chocolate!
Oh, it was a jolly luncheon!
And after it was finished and they all had declared that not until next
Thanksgiving could they think of eating anything more, off they shot in
a taxicab to the studio of Uncle Bob's friend, Mr. Norcross, who had
promised over the telephone to show them the window he was making for a
church in Chicago.
They found the studio at the top of one of New York's high buildings,
and it was flooded with light from the west and south; on one side of
the room was an open space large enough to allow an immense stained
glass window to be set up.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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