Worn counters

[Johnyxxx]

Hello.

Can anybody explain to me in what sense the phrase "the worn counters" is used in the text?


What an absurd vanity to sleep on a hard pillow and forego that last luxurious burrowing into the very depths of a mass of baby pillows!.. her back was already as straight as — a chimney?… who was the Frenchman that said one must reject the worn counters?… but this morning she would have liked that sensuous burrowing, and the pillow had never seemed so hard, so flat… yet how difficult it was to wake up! She had had the same experience once before when the doctor had given her veronal for insomnia… could Ellen, good creature, have put a tablet in the cup of broth she took last thing at night: ‘as a wise precaution,’ the doctor had said genially. What a curse insomnia was! But she had a congenital fear of drugs and had told no one of this renewal of sleeplessness, knowing it would pass.

The Foghorn by Gertrude Atherton, 1934


Thank you very much.

 

[emsr2d2]

"worn" is an adjective meaning well-used, threadbare etc. See HERE.
I believe "counters" here means "counterpanes", an old word for "bedspread". See HERE.

 

[probus]

I too thought counterpane old-fashioned, but the link you provided, ems, shows it being used as recently as 2013 in a very reputable magazine. Since the author is discussing a home from the 1700s perhaps he chose a dated word deliberately.