I can not approve of the careless manners of the young people of to-day, who loll upon easy-chairs in the presence of their elders, and who slouch into a room with constrained familiarity and awkward ease," replied Miss Farringdon, who had never sat in an easy-chair in her life, and whose back was still as straight as an arrow.
So in the afternoon of that day Christopher and Elisabeth attended Mrs.
Bateson's tea-party.
The Batesons lived in a clean little cottage on the west side of High Street, and enjoyed a large garden to the rearward.

It was a singular fact that whereas all their windows looked upon nothing more interesting than the smokier side of the bleak and narrow street, their pigsties commanded a view such as can rarely be surpassed for beauty and extent in England.

But Mrs.Bateson called her front view "lively" and her back view "dull," and congratulated herself daily upon the aspect and the prospect of her dwelling-place.

The good lady's ideas as to what constitutes beauty in furniture were by no means behind her opinions as to what is effective in scenery.

Her kitchen was paved with bright red tiles, which made one feel as if one were walking across a coral reef, and was flanked on one side with a black oak dresser of unnumbered years, covered with a brave array of blue-and-white pottery.