We stroked
them, some of the more adventurous sat upon them, and we echoed the
churchwarden's remark, "Yaller satin, sure enough, and the backs
gilded like a picter-frame."
I cannot but think that the housekeeper must have had friends visiting
her that day, which made our arrival inconvenient and tried her
temper--she was so very cross. She ran through a hasty account of each
room in injured tones, but she resented questions, refused
explanations, and was particularly irritable if anybody strayed from
the exact order in which she chose to marshal us through the house. A
vein of sarcasm in her remarks quite overpowered our farmers.
"Please to stand off the walls. There ain't no need to crowd up
against them in spacyous rooms like these, and the paper ain't one of
your cheap ones with a spotty pattern as can be patched or matched
anywhere. It come direct from the Indies, and the butterflies and the
dragons is as natteral as life. 'Whose picter's that in the last
room?' You should have kept with the party, young woman, and then
you'd 'ave knowed. Parties who don't keep with the party, and then
wants the information repeated, will be considered as another party,
and must pay accordingly.
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