Then Mrs. Lee folded her silk skirts tightly around her and lifted them high above her starched white petticoat lest she contaminate them in such an untidy house; Mrs. Van Dorn followed her example, and they tiptoed into the double parlors.  They were furnished, for the most part, with the pieces dating back to the building of the house, in one of the ugliest eras of the country, both in architecture and furniture.  The ceilings in these rather small square rooms were so lofty that one was giddy with staring at the elaborate cornices and the plaster centrepieces.  The mantels were all of massively carved marble, the windows were few and narrow, the doors multitudinous, and lofty enough for giants.  The parlor floor was carpeted with tapestry in enormous designs of crimson roses, in deliriums of arabesques, though there were a few very good Eastern rugs.  The furniture was black-walnut, upholstered in crimson plush; the tables had marble tops; the hangings were lace under heavily fringed crimson lambrequins dependent from massive gilt mouldings.  There were a bronze clock and a whatnot and a few gilt-framed oil-paintings of the conventional landscape type, contemporary with the furniture in American best parlors.  Still, there were a few things in the room which directly excited comment on the part of the visitors.  Mrs. Lee pointed at some bronzes on the shelf.

“Those are theirs, aren’t they?” said she.

“Yes, the Ranger girls had some very handsome Royal Worcester vases.  I guess James Ranger saw to it that those weren’t left here.”

Mrs. Van Dorn eyed the bronzes with outward respect, but she did not admire them.  Banbridge ladies, as a rule, unless they posed, did not admire bronzes.  She also viewed with some disapproval a number of exquisite little Chinese ivory carvings on the whatnot.  “Those are theirs,” said she.  “The Ranger girls had some handsome bound books and a silver card-receiver, and a bust of Clytie on top of the whatnot.  I suppose these are very expensive; I have always heard so.  I never priced any, but it always seemed to me that they hardly showed the money.”

“I suppose they have afternoon tea,” said Mrs. Lee, regarding a charming little inlaid tea-table, decked with Dresden.

“Perhaps so,” replied Mrs. Van Dorn, doubtfully.  “But I have noticed that when tea-tables are so handsome, folks don’t use them.  They are more for show.  That cloth is beautiful.”

“There is a tea-stain on it,” declared Mrs. Lee, pointing triumphantly.

“That is so,” assented Mrs. Van Dorn.  “They must use it.”  She looked hard at the stain on the tea-cloth.  “It’s a pity to get tea on such a cloth as that,” said she.  “It will never come out.”

“Oh, I don’t believe that will trouble them much,” said Mrs. Lee, with soft maliciousness.  She indicated with the pointed toe of her best calling-shoe, a hole in the corner of the resplendent Eastern rug.

“Oh,” returned Mrs. Van Dorn.