I gave it to her as a
birthday-present. We have both regretted it ever since. Robina
reckons she could have had a bicycle, a diamond bracelet, and a
mandoline, and I should have saved money. I did the thing well. I
told the furniture people I wanted it just as it stood in the
picture: "Design for bedroom and boudoir combined, suitable for
young girl, in teak, with sparrow blue hangings." We had everything:
the antique fire arrangements that a vestal virgin might possibly
have understood; the candlesticks, that were pictures in themselves,
until we tried to put candles in them; the book-case and writing-desk
combined, that wasn't big enough to write on, and out of which it was
impossible to get a book until you had abandoned the idea of writing
and had closed the cover; the enclosed washstand, that shut down and
looked like an old bureau, with the inevitable bowl of flowers upon
it that had to be taken off and put on the floor whenever you wanted
to use the thing as a washstand; the toilet-table, with its cunning
little glass, just big enough to see your nose in; the bedstead,
hidden away behind the "thinking corner," where the girl couldn't get
at it to make it. A prettier room you could not have imagined, till
Robina started sleeping in it. I think she tried. Girl friends of
hers, to whom she had bragged about it, would drop in and ask to be
allowed to see it. Robina would say, "Wait a minute," and would run
up and slam the door; and we would hear her for the next half-hour or
so rushing round opening and shutting drawers and dragging things
about.
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