Bel brought this away from Leicester Place, and had it in the kitchen.  Mrs. Scherman, then seeing that there remained for Kate only the choice of the four wooden chairs, and pleased with the cosy expression they were causing to pervade their precincts, suggested their making space for a short, broad lounge that she would spare to them from an upper room which was hardly ever used.  It was an old one that she had had sent from home among some other things that were reminiscences, when her father and mother, the second year after her marriage, had broken up their household in New York, and resolved on a holiday, late in life, in Europe.  It was a comfortable, shabby old thing, that she had used to curl up on to learn her German, with the black kitten in her lap, and the tip of its tail for a pointer.  She had always meant to cover it new, but had never had time.  There was a large gray travelling shawl folded over it now, making extra padding for back and seat, and the thick fringe fell below, a garnishing along the front.

“Let it be,” said Asenath.  “I don’t think you’ll set the soup-kettle or the roasting-pan down on it; and you can always shake it out fresh and make it comfortable.  It was only getting full of dust up-stairs.  There’s a square pillow in the trunk-room that you can have too, and cover with something.  A five minutes’ level rest is nice, between times, I know.  I wonder I never thought of it before.”

How would Bel or Kate have ever got a “five minutes’ level rest,” over their machine-driving at Fillmer & Bylles?  Bel had said well, that girls and women need to work under cover; in a home, where they can “rest by snatches.”  A mere roof is not a cover; there may be driving afield in a great warehouse, as well as out upon a plantation.

The last touch and achievement was more of the dun-gray carpet, like that in their bedroom, and more of the scarlet and black stair-border, made into a rug, which was spread down when work was over, and rolled up under the table when dinner was to dish, or a wash was going on.  They had been with Mrs. Scherman a month before they ventured upon that asking.

When it was finished, Sin brought her husband down after tea one night, to look at it.

“It is the most fascinating room in the house,” she said.

There was a side gas-light over the white-topped table, burning brightly.  Upon the table were work-baskets, and a volume from the Public Library.  The lounge was just turned out from the wall a little, towards it, and opposite stood the round rocking-chair.  Cheeps, in his cage at the farther window, was asleep in a yellow ball, his head under his wing.  Bel was hanging the last dish-towel upon a little folding-horse in the chimney corner, and they could hear Kate singing up-stairs to a gentle clatter of the dishes that she was putting away from the dining-room use.

“It looks as a kitchen ought to,” said Mr. Scherman.  “As my grandmother’s used to look; as if all the house-comfort came from it.”