Within the house it was not much gayer. The front hall, with its
steep, narrow stairway, and floor-covering of highly ornate landscape
oilcloth, was in a perpetual twilight. An occasional glint from white
woodwork, or the gold molding of a picture, strove in vain to dispel
the gloom. The parlor, at the right of the hall, was sepulchral with
its window cracks stuffed with paper, and the shutters securely
closed. To be sure, the living-room on the other side of the hall did
its best to look cheerful, but even that comfortable spot with its low
ceiling and battered mahogany furniture, its high cupboards flanking
the wide, stone fireplace, and its friendly litter of every-day
necessities, was not equal to the occasion.
One afternoon when the Colonel came in from the chicken yard where he
and Uncle Jimpson had constituted themselves a salvage corps, he
surprised Miss Lady sitting in the dusk on the floor before the empty
fireplace, with suspicious traces of tears upon her face.
"Make a light," blustered the Colonel; "you mustn't sit around in the
dark like this, you know. Where's my pipe?"
She sprang up and found the missing article, and with a great show of
cheerfulness lit the lamp and held the match out for him to light his
pipe.
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