"Oh yes; I know what they say about it—I've heard them a dozen times. 'It's very big and handsome and all, but not a bit home-like. I shouldn't want to sleep here.' Is that the idea?"
"About," said Jane.
"Sleep here!" echoed Mrs. Bates. "I don't sleep here. I'd as soon think of sleeping out on the prairie. That bed isn't to sleep in; it's for the women to lay their hats and cloaks on. Lay yours there now."
Jane obeyed. She worked herself out of her old blue sack, and disposed it, neatly folded, on the brocaded coverlet. Then she took off her mussy little turban and placed it on the sack. "What a strange woman," she murmured to herself. "She doesn't get any music out of her piano; she doesn't get any reading out of her books; she doesn't even get any sleep out of her bed." Jane smoothed down her hair and awaited the next stage of her adventure.
"This is the way." Mrs. Bates led her through a narrow side-door, and Jane found herself in a small room where another young woman sat before a trim bird's-eye-maple desk, whose drawers and pigeonholes were stuffed with cards and letters and papers. "This is my office. Miss Marshall, Miss Peters," she said, in the tone of introduction.
The other girl rose. She was tall and slender, like Jane. She had a pasty complexion and weak, reddish eyes. Her expression was somewhat plaintive and distressed—irritating, too, in the long run.
"Step along," called Mrs. Bates. She traversed the "office," passed into a room beyond, pushed Jane ahead of her, and shut the door. "I don't care if it does hurt her feelings." Mrs. Bates's reference appeared to be to Miss Peters.
The door closed with a light click, and Jane looked about her with a great and sudden surprise. Poor stupid, stumbling child!—she understood at last in what spirit she had been received and on what footing she had been placed.
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."