The high mantel was piled with books, the gifts of her father, Mr. Hammerton, and Miss Jewett; on the walls were photographs in oval black-walnut frames of Miss Jewett, sitting at a table with her elbow upon it and one hand resting on a book in her lap, of her father and mother, she sitting and he standing behind her, and one of herself and Dinah, taken when they were fifteen and twenty-one; there were also a large photograph taken from a painting of the Mater Dolorosa, which Mr. Hammerton had given her on her fourteenth birthday and a chromo of Red Riding Hood that he had given to Dinah upon her fourteenth birthday. Upon the table at which she was writing, books were piled, and a package of old letters that she had been sorting, and choosing some to burn, among which were two from Felix Harrison. The package contained several from Mr. Hammerton, but his were never worth burning; they were only worth keeping because they were so like himself. Pages of manuscript were scattered among the books, and a long envelope contained two rejected articles that she had planned to rewrite after a consultation with Mr. Hammerton and to send elsewhere. She had cried over her first rejected article (when she was eighteen), and two years afterward had revised it, changed the title, and her father had been proud of it in print.
She was writing and thinking of Sue when a noisy entrance below announced her presence.
“Go right up,” said Mrs. Wadsworth’s voice. “Tessa is star-gazing in her room. Don’t stay if you are chilly. Tessa likes to be cold.”
“I’ve come to stay all night. Do you want me?”
“I want you more than I want any one in the world.”
“That’s refreshing. I wanted to see you and that’s why I came. Norah Bird said that Dine was to stay all night with her and I knew I should have you all to myself. Dr. Lake brought me. I believe that he wanted me to come. What do you stay up here for? It’s lovely down-stairs with your father and mother; she is sewing and he is reading to her. Put away that great pile of foolscap and talk to me; I’m as full of talk as an egg is full of meat.”
“Your room always looks pretty and there isn’t much in it, either.”
“Old Place _is_ enchanting!” Sue tossed her gloves and hat to the bed. “I’ll keep on my sacque; I want to stay up here.”