Helen with the High Hand (2nd ed.)

d, on the way from Bursley to Hanbridge. I may not indicate the exact house, but I c

domestic architecture had lost trace of the Georgian style. First you went up two white steps (white in theory), through a little gate in a wrought-iron railing painted the colour of peas after they have been cooked in a bad restaurant. You then found yourself in a little front yard, twelve feet in width (the whole width of the house) by six feet in depth. The yard was paved

nside, on the sashes, lay long thin scarlet sausages of red cloth and sawdust, to keep out the draughts. The door was divided into eight small panels with elaborate beadings, and over it was a delicate fanlight-one of about a score in Bursley-to remind the observer of a lost elegance. Between the fanlight and the upstairs window exactly above it was a rusty iron plaque, with vestiges

full of people, for although James's latchkey was very highly polished and the lock well oiled, he never succeeded in opening his door at the first attempt.

part of the wall. No lobby, hall, or vestibule behind that door! One instant you were in the yard, the next you were in the middle of the sitting-room, and t

ow. He had learnt much in the previous hour, but there

and hung up his hard hat on the in

string with a ball of fringed paper, designed for the amusement of flies. At the window was a flat desk, on which were transacted the affairs of Mr. Ollerenshaw. When he stationed himself at it in the seat of custom and of judgment, defaulting tenants, twirling caps or twisting aprons, had a fine view of the left side of his face. He usually talked to them while staring out of the window. Before this desk was a Windsor chair. There were eight other Windsor chairs in the room-Helen was sitting on one that had not been sat upon for years and years-a teeming but idle population of chairs. A horseha

or chair and tried the ar

you recommend?"

sit here, except at th' de

tting, was not used as a sitting-room, but as an office. The kitchen, though it contained a range, was not used as a kitchen, but as a sitting-room. The scullery, though it had no range, was filled with a gas cooking-stove and used as a kitchen. And the back yard was used as a scullery. This arrangement never struck anybody as singular; it did not strike even Helen as singular. H

feigned to glance at the

om. "I suppose you have

" said James. "But her isn't

on James's part. He had distinctly caught a

re. You must be very comfortable-for a man. But, of

demanded

ed, "I don't kno

say as it isn'

are very clea

in the art of innuendo is th

after he had smiled into a corner of the

stepuncle, I

id he, firmly, "or my nam

n and the scullery was half-closed; in the aperture he again

oom," said Helen,

' back yard," said Ollere

e. Its seat-five feet by two-was very broad and very low, and it had a steep, high back and sides. All its angles were right angles. It was everywhere comfortably padded; it yielded everywhere to firm pressure; and it was covered with a grey and green striped stuff. You could not sit on that squab and be in a draught;

irts in cascading folds; she had posed her parasol in a corner of it, as though

what's that as swis

t's

that as

-a frank, gay laugh, light and bright as alumin

You mean that?" She brusquely moved her limbs, reprodu

ed the old man

ilk petticoat.

a' seen

inches-the discreetest, the modestest gesture. He had

as I dislike

cupboard, a velvet Turkish smoking cap depended from a nail. He put on the cap, of which the long tassel curved down to his ear. Then he faced her again, putting his hands behind him, and raising himself at intervals on his small, well-polish

ging it on that na

it had been of glass,

e smile she gazed round and about, at the warm, cracked, smooth red tiles of the floor; at the painted green walls, at a Windsor chair near the cupboard-a solitary chair that had evidently been misunderstood by the large family of relatives in the o

your meals here

I have what I ca

ied, "don't y

'em," h

you have tea?"

ck," said h

a clock with weights at the end of brass chains and a l

. But her'll come back. Happen her's g

always have

plied. "I fancy a snack for my

ut I never yet knew a servant who could get something tasty every day. Of course, it's quite easy if you

James m

ink that if you like a thing one day you'll like

it's more than three years ago." He stuck his lips o

But she laughed, a

reat-stepuncle. Are we both going to drink out of the same cup?"

ched the

"Let me. I'll do that, as

was a blue-and-white cup and saucer, and a plate to match undern

nselled her. "Why d

ke it," she r

e said, as she put it on the table and dusted th

"until it comes to be washed up. So I'll st

the teaspoons, miss!

I can,"

scovered the knob of a drawer, and opene

t stop. It's nearly time your servant was back, if she's always so dreadfully prompt as you say.

s permission, she burst yo

imed, "there's

re was. There

of Mrs. Butt is hardly called for. Suffice it to say that she had so much waist as to have no waist, and that she possessed bot

in at the door. "It's Mrs. Butt," s

Butt," Helen began, wi

pa

fternoo

t for uncle's tea to-

she pointed to an oblate spheroid, the colour of brick, but smo

-from

yet, I see," Hele

finished h

ked up the kidney in her pudding-like hand and gazed at it. "I'm glad the brasses is clean, miss, at any rate, though the house does look as thou

till holding

rom Uncl

glared at him. "You may 'h'm' as much as yo'n a mind." Then to Helen: "Come in, miss; come in. Don't

idney to the floor, snatched up a bon

mes Ollerenshaw.