She found herself in a small, cramped, low-ceiled room which was filled
with worn and antiquated furniture. There was a ponderous old mahogany
bureau, with the veneering cracked and peeled, and a bed to correspond.
There was a shabby little writing-desk, whose let-down lid was lined with
faded and blotted green baize. On the floor there was an old Brussels
carpet, antique as to pattern, and wholly threadbare as to surface.
The walls were covered with an old-time paper whose plaintive
primitiveness ran in slender pink stripes alternating with narrow green
vines. In one corner stood a small upright piano whose top was littered
with loose sheets of old music, and on one wall hung a set of thin
black-walnut shelves strung together with cords and loaded with a variety
of well-worn volumes. In the grate was a coal fire. Mrs. Bates sat down
on the foot of the bed and motioned Jane to a small rocker that had been
re-seated with a bit of old rugging.
"And now," she said, cheerily, "let's get to business. Sue Bates, at your
service."
"Oh, no," gasped Jane, who felt, however dumbly and mistily, that this
was an epoch in her life. "Not here; not to-day."
"Why not? Go ahead; tell me all about the charity that isn't a charity.
You'd better; this is the last room--there's nothing beyond." Her eyes
were twinkling, but immensely kind.
"I know it," stammered Jane. "I knew it in a second." She felt, too, that
not a dozen persons had ever penetrated to this little chamber.
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