“Where’s Mr. Emerson? Oh, yes, here he is, in a blue suit. Here, we’ll plant the rose of beauty on the brow of chaos!”
She took the set of Emerson and placed it in the top shelf by the east fireplace, above a tumbled heap of unassorted volumes, standing back to survey it with her gurgling laugh. “What is so decorative as books?” she cried. “They beat pictures or wall paper. Oh, the nice room, the nice books, nice old Mr. Emerson, nice twin fires!”
“And nice librarian,” I added.
She darted a look at me, laughed with heightened colour, and herself added, with a glance at her wrist watch, “And nice dinner!”
I brought back some of my manuscripts after dinner, in case the room should be completed before supper time. We attacked it again with enthusiasm, hers being no less, apparently, than mine, for it was indeed wonderful to see the place emerge from bareness into the most alluring charm as the books filled the shelves, as my two Morris chairs were placed before the fires, as my three or four treasured rugs were unrolled on the rather uneven but charmingly old floor which just fitted the old, rugged hearthstones, and finally as the two bright Hiroshiges were placed in the centre of the two white wood panels over the fireplaces, and the other pictures hung over the bookcases.
“Wait,” cried the girl suddenly. “Have you any vases?”
“A couple of glass ones,” I said. “Why?”
“Get them, and never mind.”
I found the barrel which contained breakables in the shed, unpacked it, and brought in the contents–a few vases, my college tea set, a little Tanagra dancing-girl. I placed the dancing figure on top of the shelf between the settles, and Miss Goodwin set the tea things on my one table by the south door. Then she got an umbrella and vanished. A few minutes later she returned with two clumps of sweet flag blades from the brookside, placed one in each of the small vases, and stood them on the twin mantels, beneath the Japanese prints.
“There!” she cried, clapping her hands. “Now what do you think of your room?”