Thursday evening, the house was immaculate. There was neither fad nor fancy about its equipment. Debby had brought down some great four-posters, old blue china, and solid silver. Miss Richards had several black walnut armchairs that were old enough to have been Mayflower Pilgrims, but which were not. There was a rug which Miss Richards had picked up in Europe twenty years before and a gay screen which Lieutenant Richards had bought a century before in an old junk shop in China.
"We look as though we had stepped from a previous century," said Miss Richards. "We haven't a modern article about us—" She glanced toward Hester and then added—"except Hester."
"You really need me," responded the girl. "I'm the only piece of twentieth-century furniture you and auntie have. I think I shall remain with you. I could study just as well here as shut up in that old stone building. I really think I could get my lessons better."
"I think so, too," said Miss Richards, "that is if you refer but to book lessons."
"What other kind could there be?"
"The kind that people teach you. They are all sorts of lessons, as varied in kind as there are people. The girls at Dickinson will teach you many a good lesson."
"I should think you and Aunt Debby could do it better. I've quite made up my mind to be but a parlor student."
"There are some things Debby and I cannot teach you. We love you too much to give you the very lessons which we know would prove best for you. The girls at school will do that for us."
"I do not always quite understand," said Hester. "Mr. Sanderson used to declare that I was neither philosophical nor mathematical. I do not see deeply into matters. I do know, though, which I like. Just now there is nothing I should like better than being at home with you and Aunt Debby, and I have quite made up my mind to that."
"You had better unmake it, Hester," said Debby who, coming into the house at that moment, had overheard their words.