"It is what they like," said Lilli. "But we have another woman for the floors and beating out the rugs, and doing the brass, so it is not so much."
"Floors and rugs and brass every day, too?"
"Of course," returned both girls together, as if I had asked them about their baths or their tooth-brushes. "Of course."
Lisbeth opened the door of a front room on the second floor.
"This is the spare room," said she, and advanced cautiously through the dusk caused by the closing of the shutters. "We keep them so in the afternoon," she explained, "because of the sunshine."
"Yes, otherwise the room would be hot, I suppose?"
"We do not mind its being hot. It is because the sun would fade the carpet and the curtains." She threw open the blinds as she spoke, but carefully shut both windows again.
"Oh, mayn't we have them open?" I ventured to ask. "The air is lovely."
"If you like," my cousin replied. "Only, if you do, the sand may blow in."
"Just at the top then."