Betty Leicester by Sarah Orne Jewett

AUNT BARBARA and Betty had finished their breakfast in the cool breakfast-room, or little dining-room as it was sometimes called by the family. This looked out on the short elm-shaded grass of the side yard, but it was apt to get too warm later in the day. The dining-room was much larger, and had most of the family portraits in it and a ponderous sideboard and side tables, and Betty sometimes thought that a good deal of machinery had to be set running there to give a quiet dinner or supper just to Aunt Barbara and herself. But the little dining-room was very cosy, with a small sideboard and a tall clock and an old looking-glass and very old-fashioned slender wooden armchairs. The sun came dancing in through the leaves at a square window. The breakfast-room was nearer the kitchen, and Serena had a sociable custom of appearing now and then to ask Miss Leicester about the housekeeping.

"There now, Miss Barb'ra," she exclaimed, putting her head in at the door, while Betty and her aunt still lingered. "You excuse me this time, but here's Jonathan considers it best to go off up-country looking for winter's wood, of all things! I told him I'd like to ride up long of him to see sister Sarah when he went, but I never expected he'd select the very day I set two weeks ago for us to pick the currants."