Читать книгу The Millbank Case: A Maine Mystery of To-day онлайн

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From the principal door, the main hall, broad and unencumbered, makes back until it is cut by the narrower hall from the south-side door. This side hall carries the stairs, and east of it are the dining room, kitchens, and pantries. The main hall goes on, in narrowed estate, between the dining room on the south and kitchens on the north, to the woodsheds. To the left, as one enters the house, is the great parlour, seldom used, and a sitting room, the gloomiest room on the floor, for it has a northern outlook only.

In the angle of the two halls is the great room which Wing used as his library. It is some twenty-four by thirty-six feet, high-posted, and has a warm, sunny outlook to the south and west. It is lined with books and pictures; a great desk stands in the centre front, and lounges and easy chairs are scattered about in inviting confusion. The room above was his bedchamber, adjoining which is a bathroom, in its day the wonder and challenge of Millbank. An iron spiral stairway leads from the lower to the upper room, so that the occupant has the two rooms at his command independent of the remainder of the house. This was Wing’s special domain. Outside these two rooms, Mrs. Parlin ruled as undisputed as during her thirty years of wifehood. Within, Wing held control, and while no small share of his personal work was done here, the great room saw much of his private life of which his everyday acquaintances had little suspicion. The cases contained many a volume that belongs to literature rather than law, and here he found that best of rest from the onerous demands of a constantly growing practice—complete change in matter and manner of thought.