My second favorite fictional room

Yesterday I wrote about Maria's room, in The Little White Horse, by Elizabeth Goudge. My second favorite fictional room is also from a Goudge book--Linnets and Valerians. I love this room mainly because Nan's happiness in it rings so true...

"Nan sat down in the little armchair and folded her hands in her lap. A parlor of her own! She had never even had a bedroom of her own let alone a parlor. It was quiet in here, the noises of the house shut away, the sound of the wind and rain outside seeming only to intensify the indoor silence. The light of the flames was reflected in the paneling and the burning logs smelled sweet. Something inside her seemed to expand like a flower opening and she sighed with relief. She had not known before that she liked to be alone. She sat still for ten minutes, making friends with her room, and then she got up and moved slowly around it making friends with all it had."

An introvert's dream come true.

For those who haven't read this book--it is about a family of four motherless Edwardian children whose military father has left them with their grandmother in England. Escaping from her stern attentions, the children end up at their uncle's house, in a Devon village at the edge of the moors. There they find magic, both good and evil, and end up righting ancient wrongs....and the descriptions of places, people, food, and gardens are utterly and wonderfully wonderful. I read it when I was eight. It knocked my socks off. Still does.