Here are Phil's banjo and his boxing-gloves, and a lot
of what nurse calls his "rubbish"; Fee's easel is in this corner, and
a couple of forlorn, dirty old plaster casts which--unless he has a
painting-fit on him--generally serve as hat-rests for Phil and himself.
Pictures in various stages of completion stand about. Here, too, are
Nannie's and Fee's violins, resting against a pile of old music that Max
gave them before he went away. In the next corner, the other side of the
low, deep-silled windows, hangs Nora's china-shelf, on which are ranged
what the boys call her Lares and Penates,--vases and pretty cups and
saucers that have been given to her. Here, too, are her plants,
conspicuous among which is a graceful fan-leaved palm, known in
the family as Lady Jane.
These are the front corners; and between the windows stand our
book-shelves,--they are in a clumsy, unsteady old case, that rocks from
side to side if you touch it, and is only held together by the wall
against which it leans. The shelves are rather short,--now and then a
shelf slips off its notches and spills our library,--and they are so
narrow that books constantly fall down behind, and lie there until
house-cleaning or a sudden desire for one of those volumes brings them
all to light, and they are restored to their places.
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