"Impossible that any one should be as respectable as that man looks!"
thought Sir James, impatiently. He walked forward to the fire, warmed
hands and feet chilled by a nipping east wind, and then, with his back
to the warmth, he examined the room.
It was very characteristic of its mistress. At Tallyn Henry Marsham had
worked his will; here, in this house taken since his death, it was the
will and taste of his widow which had prevailed. A gray paper with a
small gold sprig upon it, sofas and chairs not too luxurious, a Brussels
carpet, dark and unobtrusive, and chintz curtains; on the walls,
drawings by David Cox, Copley Fielding, and De Wint; a few books with
Mudie labels; costly photographs of friends and relations, especially of
the relations' babies; on one table, and under a glass case, a model in
pith of Lincoln Cathedral, made by Lady Lucy's uncle, who had been a
Canon of Lincoln; on another, a set of fine carved chessmen; such was
the furniture of the room. It expressed--and with emphasis--the tastes
and likings of that section of English society in which, firmly based as
it is upon an ample supply of all material goods, a seemly and
intelligent interest in things ideal and spiritual is also to be found.
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