The apartment he entered was really only a lumber-room or loft over the wing of the house,which had been left bare and unfinished,and which revealed in its meagre skeleton of beams and joints the hollow sham of the whole structure.But in more violent contrast to the fresher glories of the other part of the house were its contents,which were the heterogeneous collection of old furniture,old luggage,and cast-off clothing,left over from the past life in the old cabin.It was a much plainer record of the simple beginnings of the family than Mrs.Mulrady cared to have remain in evidence,and for that reason it had been relegated to the hidden recesses of the new house,in the hope that it might absorb or digest it.There were old cribs,in which the infant limbs of Mamie and Abner had been tucked up;old looking-glasses,that had reflected their shining,soapy faces,and Mamie's best chip Sunday hat;an old sewing-machine,that had been worn out in active service;old patchwork quilts;an old accordion,to whose long drawn inspirations Mamie had sung hymns;old pictures,books,and old toys.There were one or two old chromos,and,stuck in an old frame,a colored print from the "Illustrated London News"of a Christmas gathering in an old English country house.He stopped and picked up this print,which he had often seen before,gazing at it with a new and singular interest.He wondered if Mamie had seen anything of this kind in England,and why couldn't he have had something like it here,in their own fine house,with themselves and a few friends?He remembered a past Christmas,when he had bought Mamie that now headless doll with the few coins that were left him after buying their frugal Christmas dinner.There was an old spotted hobby-horse that another Christmas had brought to Abner--Abner,who would be driving a fast trotter to-morrow at the Springs!How everything had changed!How they all had got up in the world,and how far beyond this kind of thing--and yet--yet it would have been rather comfortable to have all been together again here.Would THEY have been more comfortable?No!Yet then he might have had something to do,and been less lonely to-morrow.
第23章 CHAPTER V(1)（1 / 3）