III—INTRODUCED
THE house in which the late Jethro Somerton had lived was a plain wooden structure, entered by a door opening directly into a room which had been used as a sitting room. Behind this was a kitchen, beside which was a bedroom, while in front, beside the sitting room, was a "best room" or parlor. There was a second floor, in which were four rooms, some of which had never been used. The ceilings throughout the house were so low that Philip, who was quite tall, could touch them with his finger-tips when he stood on tiptoe. The walls of the sitting room and parlor were hard-finished and white; all the other walls were rough and whitewashed.
"This is quite out of the question, as a home," said Philip. "No hall, no—"
"Why not make believe that the sitting room is a square hall?" Grace asked. "They're the rage in the swell villages around New York."
"But there's no bath room."
"We can make one, on the upper floor, where we've rooms to spare."
"Perhaps; but 'tis very improbable that the town has a water service."
"Then have a tank, fed from the roof or by a pump, as Aunt Eunice has in her cottage, smaller than this and in a town no larger than Claybanks."