“And I’d like it too,” Annis returned with hearty acquiescence. “And, in fact,” she went on, “I’d rather not be where everything is so handsome and costly; because I might spoil something.”
“That wouldn’t make any difference, ’tis easy to replace things, and one grows tired of always seeing the same,” Elsie said. “But I think the other room is quite as pretty in every way as that.”
She had led Annis into a back hall, and they were now descending a flight of stairs that led to another on the ground floor; reaching that they presently came to a door which, on opening, admitted them to a bedroom that was, as Elsie remarked, quite equal to the one they had just left.
“This is it, Annis,” she said. “That door yonder opens into my sleeping-room, and you can get to Cousin Mildred from here very quickly and easily by the way we came.”
“Oh, I’ll take this!” said Annis. “’Twill be ever so nice for us to be close together!”
“Oh, won’t it! I’m so glad. Come and see my rooms if you’re not too tired.” And Elsie led the way, Annis following, through bedroom, dressing-room, and boudoir.
They were large and airy, and so luxuriously and beautifully furnished and adorned that Annis almost thought herself in fairy-land.
She said so to her little cousin, adding, “What a happy girl you must be! you seem to have nothing left to wish for.”
“‘A man’s life consisteth not in the abundance of the things which he possesseth,’” Elsie murmured half aloud, half to herself; then turning to Annis a very bright, winsome face, “You know Jesus said that when here on earth, and though I am very happy I sometimes think I could be just as happy in a hut with His love and my dear papa’s.”
“Yes,” assented Annis, “I wouldn’t be without father and mother for all the money and fine things in the world. But oh, isn’t it time for me to be getting washed and dressed?”