She was equally elevated by the imitation willow pattern
plates over the door, and the painted yellow daffodils
on the panels, and the orange-colored _Revue des Deux
Mondes_ on the corner of the table, and the absence of
all bows or draperies from the furniture. Miss Kimpsey's
own parlor was excrescent with bows and draperies. "She
is above them," thought Miss Kimpsey, with a little pang.
The room was so dark that she could not see how old the
_Revue_ was; she did not know either that it was always
there, that unexceptionable Parisian periodical, with
Dante in the original and red leather, _Academy Notes_,
and the _Nineteenth Century_, all helping to furnish Mrs.
Leslie Bell's drawing-room in a manner in accordance with
her tastes; but if she had, Miss Kimpsey would have been
equally impressed. It took intellect even to select these
things. The other books, Miss Kimpsey noticed by the
numbers labelled on their backs, were mostly from the
circulating library--"David Grieve," "Cometh up as a
Flower," "The Earthly Paradise," Ruskin's "Stones of
Venice," Marie Corelli's "Romance of Two Worlds." The
mantelpiece was arranged in geometrical disorder, but it
had a gilt clock under a glass shade precisely in the
middle.
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