Page:Christopher Morley--Tales from a rolltop desk.djvu/162

Hemming had a home, and dearly he loved everything in it—with one exception.

He loved the furnace, and the kitchen range with its warm ruddy glow, and the violet-coloured wafer of expensive aromatic soap that always mysteriously appeared on the marble wash-basin when visitors came. He loved the little glass towel racks, and the miniature embroidered hand towels with Mrs. Hemming's maiden initials on them, which also appeared, white and fragrant, whenever there was any special festivity. Those little towels were to him a kind of symbol of the first ecstatic days of their married life, and he could not bear to think of the inevitable time when they would be frayed and discarded. He loved the shelf over the fireplace where his brown-stained corncob pipe waited for the after-supper smoke. He loved the little porch where the baby carriage stood, and the tulip beds that he and Janet had planted together, and the mission dining table,