116 WHISPERS FROM FAIRYLAND. ful

 

from the kitchen, which was itself rather a large, com-
fortable room, and served Dolly and old Martha for
their usual sitting-room, the parlour being seldom
used, but kept as a state apartment into which
visitors out of the ordinary run might be shown.
Those who were fortunate, or unfortunate, enough to
have obtained access to Simon’s Den, wondered what
the old man could find therein to make him so fond
of it, as he certainly was. It was lighted by a sky-
light, and consequently somewhat ill-ventilated, as
the sky-lights of that locality were not constructed
with a view to the admission of air. It was there-
fore less pleasant to the nose than might otherwise
have been the case, whilst dust and dirt were by no
means strangers; and the broom of the housemaid
being almost unknown, there existed in every corner of
the little room that which worthy Martha designated
a ‘dreadful litter ;’ a carpet, or rather the pieces of
what had been a carpet in its earlier days, covered
the floor; the walls might, or might not, have been
originally papered, for age, dirt, and inattention had
combined to discolour them to a degree which made
it exccedingly difficult to determine what their condi-
tion might formerly have been. In short, the appear-
ance of the little room was not prepossessing to the
fastidious stranger, but to Simon Ricketts it was
Paradise. ‘The Den had one redeeming feature, the
chimney never smoked ; this, however, could not be
said of Simon, who loved to sit in his old arm-chair
opposite the bright little fire which Mrs. Pattison’s
care provided for him, and to find solace in his pipe
after his day’s work.