High
spirits lead to nicknames and Peter was in the very highest of spirits when
he took the house. The name alluded both to the shape--round bow-windowed
like--fat bulging little walls, lemon-coloured, and to the kind of life
that Peter intended to lead. All was to be Happiness. Life is challenged
with all the high spirits of a truly happy ceremony.
It is indeed a tiny house--tiny hall, tiny stairs, tiny rooms but quaint
with a little tumble-down orchard behind it and that strange painted house
that old mad Miss Anderson lives in on the other side of the orchard. Such
a quiet little street too ... a line of the gravest trees, cobbles with
only the most occasional cart and a little church with a sleepy bell at the
farthest end ... all was to be Happiness.
Wedding presents--there had been six hundred or so--filled the rooms.
People had, on the whole, been sensible, had given the right thing. The
little drawing-room with its grey wall-paper, roses in blue jars, its two
pictures--Velasquez' Maria Theresa in an old silver frame and Rembrandt's
Night Watch--was pleasant, but overwhelmed now by the presence of these two
enormous ladies. The evening sun, flooding it all with yellow light, was
impertinent enough to blind the eyes of Mrs. Rossiter. She rose and moved
slowly to draw down the blinds. A little silver clock struck half-past
four.
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