“Right-o,” said Valiant. “It’s all up-hill, so the motor won’t run away with you. Aunt Daphne, can you get some help with the cleaning?” “He’p?” that worthy responded with fine scorn. “No, suh. Moughty few, in de town ’cep’n low-down yaller new-issue trash det ain’ wu’f killin’! Ah gwineter go fo’ dat house mahse’f ’fo’ long, hammah en tongs, en git it fix’ up!” “Splendid! My destiny is in your hands. You might take the dog with you, Uncle Jefferson; the run will do him good.” When the latter had disappeared and truculent sounds from the kitchen indicated that the era of strenuous cleaning had begun, he reentered the library, changed the water in the rose-glass and set it on the edge of the shady front porch, where its flaunting blossom made a dash of bright crimson against the grayed weather-beaten brick. This done, he opened the one large room on the ground-floor that he had not visited. It was double the size of the library, a parlor hung in striped yellow silk vaguely and tenderly faded, with a tall plate mirror set over a marble-topped console at either side. In one corner stood a grand piano of Circassian walnut with keys of tinted mother-of-pearl and a slender music-rack inlaid with [Pg 114]morning-glories in the same material. From the center of the ceiling, above an oval table, depended a great chandelier hung with glass prisms. He drew his handkerchief across the table; beneath the disfiguring dust it showed a highly polished surface inlaid with different colored woods, in an intricate Italian-like landscape. The legs of the consoles were bowed, delicately carved, and of gold-leaf. The chairs and sofas were covered with dusty slip-covers of muslin. He lifted one of these. The tarnished gold furniture was Louis XV, the upholstery of yellow brocade with a pattern of pink roses. Two Japanese hawthorn vases sat on teak-wood stands and a corner held a glass cabinet containing a collection of small ivories and faience. His appreciative eye kindled. “What a room!” he muttered. “Not a jarring note anywhere! That’s an old Crowe and Christopher piano. I’ll get plenty of music out of that! You don’t see such chandeliers outside of palaces any more except in the old French ch teaus. It holds a hundred candles if it holds one! I never knew before all there was in that phrase ‘the candle-lighted fifties.’ I can imagine what it looked like, with the men in white stocks and flowered waistcoats and the women in their crinolines and red-heeled slippers, bowing to the minuet under that candle-light! I’ll bet the girls bred in this neighborhood won’t take much to the turkey-trot and the bunny-hug!” [Pg 115]