It was needless; but he did it.
They entered a broad hall paved with flagstones.
On the left of this an open door revealed the taproom, half full of rustic workingmen, who were smoking, drinking, laughing and talking, and whose forms loomed indistinctly through the thick smoke, tinted in one corner like a golden mist by the horizontal rays of the setting sun that streamed obliquely through the end window.
On the right another open door revealed a large low-ceiled parlor, with whitewashed walls and sanded floor, a broad window in front filled with flowering plants in pots, and a broad fireplace at the back filled with evergreen boughs and cut paper flowers. On the walls were cheap colored pictures, purporting to be portraits of the queen and members of the royal family. Against the walls were ranged Windsor chairs. On the mantelpiece stood an eight-day clock, flanked by a pair of sperm candles, in brass candlesticks.
In the middle of the floor stood a square table, covered with a damask cloth as white as new fallen snow, and so smooth and glossy, with such sharp lines where it had been folded, that proved it to have been just taken from the linen press and spread upon the table.
The house might be old-fashioned and somewhat dilapidated, not to say tumble-down, as to its outward appearance; but this large, low-ceiled room was clean, neat, fresh and fragrant as it was possible for a room to be.
“This is pleasant, isn’t it, papa?” said Wynnette, as she stood by the flowery window, threw off her brown straw hat, pulled off her gloves, drew off her duster, put them all upon one chair and dropped herself into another.
“Yes. If the tea proves as good as the room, we shall be content,” replied Mr. Force.
The man-of-all-work, who had slipped out and put on a clean apron, and taken up a clean towel, with magical expedition, now reappeared to take orders.
“What would you please to have, sir?”