Probably the word ` auburn ' was not in Janet 's vocabulary at all . '' ` Wayside ' is a dear sort of little spot . The house is small and white , set down in a delightful little hollow that drops away from the road . Between road and house is an orchard and flower-garden all mixed up together . The front door walk is bordered with quahog clam-shells -- ` cow-hawks , ' Janet calls them ; there is Virginia Creeper over the porch and moss on the roof . My room is a neat little spot ` off the parlor ' -- just big enough for the bed and me . Over the head of my bed there is a picture of Robby Burns standing at Highland Mary 's grave , shadowed by an enormous weeping willow tree . Robby 's face is so lugubrious that it is no wonder I have bad dreams . Why , the first night I was here I dreamed I COULD N'T LAUGH . `` The parlor is tiny and neat . Its one window is so shaded by a huge willow that the room has a grotto-like effect of emerald gloom . There are wonderful tidies on the chairs , and gay mats on the floor , and books and cards carefully arranged on a round table , and vases of dried grass on the mantel-piece . Between the vases is a cheerful decoration of preserved coffin plates -- five in all , pertaining respectively to Janet 's father and mother , a brother , her sister Anne , and a hired man who died here once ! If I go suddenly insane some of these days ` know all men by these presents ' that those coffin-plates have caused it . `` But it 's all delightful and I said so . Janet loved me for it , just as she detested poor Esther because Esther had said so much shade was unhygienic and had objected to sleeping on a feather bed . Now , I glory in feather-beds , and the more unhygienic and feathery they are the more I glory . Janet says it is such a comfort to see me eat ; she had been so afraid I would be like Miss Haythorne , who would n't eat anything but fruit and hot water for breakfast and tried to make Janet give up frying things . Esther is really a dear girl , but she is rather given to fads . The trouble is that she has n't enough imagination and HAS a tendency to indigestion .
`` XXXXX told me I could have the use of the parlor when any young men called !
Creeper Esther Haythorne Janet Robby coffin-plates cow-hawks flower-garden mantel-piece night