书城公版NORTH AND SOUTH
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第28章 NEW SCENES AND FACES (2)

Here, even the necessary accommodation of two sitting-rooms and four bed-rooms seemed unattainable. They went through their list, rejecting each as they visited it. Then they looked at each other in dismay. 'We must go back to the second, I think. That one,--in Crampton, don't they call the suburb? There were three sitting-rooms; don't you remember how we laughed at the number compared with the three bed-rooms? But I have planned it all. The front room down-stairs is to be your study and our dining-room (poor papa!), for, you know, we settled mamma is to have as cheerful a sitting-room as we can get; and that front room up-stairs, with the atrocious blue and pink paper and heavy cornice, had really a pretty view over the plain, with a great bend of river, or canal, or whatever it is, down below. Then I could have the little bed-room behind, in that projection at the head of the first flight of stairs--over the kitchen, you know--and you and mamma the room behind the drawing-room, and that closet in the roof will make you a splendid dressing-room.' 'But Dixon, and the girl we are to have to help?' 'Oh, wait a minute. I am overpowered by the discovery of my own genius for management. Dixon is to have--let me see, I had it once--the back sitting-room.

I think she will like that. She grumbles so much about the stairs at Heston;and the girl is to have that sloping attic over your room and mamma's.