"Mrs. James: Antiquities;" it says in gilt letters over the door on which you can still see the mark left by the professional name-plate of Doctor James. His wife had that taken off before she opened her shop, because she felt that her going into trade might seem to discredit "his honoured name."
That is her great watchword: "his honoured name." I've often heard her repeat it to Grandma, who invariably snorts and says something to dishearten or humiliate the poor humble darling who thinks so much of the Hillard and James families, and so little of herself.
Opening the door, which rings a bell of its own accord, you walk straight into the drawing-room, or hall. There's an oak screen which cuts off your view to the left, and gives an opportunity for surprises; and straight ahead at the back is a lovely old carved stairway, that goes up steeply, with two turns and two platforms, where stand tall, ancient clocks. Behind this hall or drawing-room, turned into a shop, is a tiny parlour, where Mrs. James spends her few free hours, eats her tiny, lonesome meals, and faithfully reads nearly every book in her husband's library, so that she may be an intelligent companion for him if he comes back. The walls of the parlour are covered with his books, on shelves reaching up nearly as high as the low-beamed ceiling. Behind the parlour is the kitchen, which looks into a tiny garden with one lovely apple tree in it; and a back stairway almost like a ladder leads to what used to be servants' rooms. Now Mrs. James sleeps in one; and next door is the young girl, rescued from something or other by the Salvation Army, who is her only servant. The front part of the "upstairs," which you reach by the lovely staircase in the shop, is occupied by a curate-lodger. Heppie says Mrs. James can afford to give up having a lodger now, and that she keeps him on only because she's stingy; or else because she thinks it "distinguished" to have some connection with "Church." But I'm sure it's really because she's so kind and good-natured, that she can't bear to turn the curate away from rooms which have been his only home for years.
She _was_ surprised to see me get out of an automobile with a man! I know she did see me get out, because she opened the door herself, exclaiming in her soft Devonshire voice, which has never been hardened by the north, "Why, Barribel, my _dear_ child, can I _believe_ my eyes?"