THREE:"True; but neither are the enemy, and they're early risers, you know."At one side of the kitchen there was a long table, where the food was[Pg 171] prepared previous to its introduction to the cooking-pot, and near this table there was a series of shelves where the plates, cups, saucers, and other articles of the dinner-service were kept. The kitchen could be shut off at night, like the other rooms, by means of paper screens, and it was here that the cook and her assistants slept when the labors of the day were over. The bedding, what little there was of it, was brought from a cupboard in one side of the room, and was altogether out of sight in the day. When not wanted, it was speedily put away, and a few minutes sufficed to convert the kitchen into a sleeping-room, or the sleeping-room into a kitchen.
