The show-room was over the
millinery and silken half of the shop. Over the woollen and
shirting half were the drawing-room and the chief bedroom. When in
quest of articles of coquetry, you mounted from the shop by a
curving stair, and your head gradually rose level with a large
apartment having a mahogany counter in front of the window and
along one side, yellow linoleum on the floor, many cardboard
boxes, a magnificent hinged cheval glass, and two chairs. The
window-sill being lower than the counter, there was a gulf between
the panes and the back of the counter, into which important
articles such as scissors, pencils, chalk, and artificial flowers
were continually disappearing: another proof of the architect's
incompetence.
The girls could only press their noses against the window by
kneeling on the counter, and this they were doing. Constance's
nose was snub, but agreeably so. Sophia had a fine Roman nose; she
was a beautiful creature, beautiful and handsome at the same time.
They were both of them rather like racehorses, quivering with
delicate, sensitive, and luxuriant life; exquisite, enchanting
proof of the circulation of the blood; innocent, artful, roguish,
prim, gushing, ignorant, and miraculously wise.
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