“Who?”
“Your father.”
“Why not?”
“’Twarn’t no place for a girl.”
“It was the place for me.”
“Why?”
“Because Dad was there.”
Something in the reply left Ellen wordless and made her continue her way upstairs without answering. When she did speak, it was to say in a gentler tone:
“Mebbe you’ll like the room I’m going to give you. It used to belong to your Dad when he was a little boy.”
She lifted the latch of a paneled door and stood looking into a large bedroom. The sun slanted across a bare, painted floor, which was covered by a few braided rugs, old and worn; there was a great four-poster about which were draped chintz curtains, yellowed by age, and between the windows stood a mahogany bureau whose brasses were tarnished by years of service; two stiff ladder-back chairs, a three-cornered washstand, and a few faded photographs in pale gilt frames completed the furnishings. 47