dBooks desire

Everything was brand new, seemed to have been
only that moment placed, and was of the costliest-
statuary, carpets, armor, carved seats of stone and
wood, marble staircase rising majestically, tapestries,
pictures, drawing-room furniture. The hall was vast,
but the drawing-room was vaster. Empty, one would
have said that it could not possibly be furnished. Yet
it was not only full, but crowded-chairs and sofas,
hassocks and tete-a-tetes, cabinets, tables, pictures,
statues, busts, palms, flowers, a mighty fireplace in
which, behind enormous and costly andirons, crackled
enormous and costly logs. There was danger in moving
about; one could not be sure of not upsetting something,
and one felt that the least damage that could be
done there would be an appallingly expensive matter.
Before that cavernous fireplace posed General
Siddall. He was a tiny mite of a man with a thin wiry
body supporting the head of a professional barber.
His black hair was glossy and most romantically
arranged. His black mustache and imperial were waxed
and brilliantined.


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