Supper was evidently over, and the friends, amply feasted, were now
luxuriating in the delicious indolence, half-dozing, half-daydreaming,
of a calm sleepy smoke, modestly lubricated by an occasional sip of the
cool beverage before them. If we except a pile of box-coats, capes, and
mackintoshes of every cut and color--a traveling liquor-case which,
standing open, displayed the tops of three more bottles similar to that
on the table, and spaces lined with velvet for all the glass in use--and
another little leathern box, which, like the liquor-case, showed its
contents of several silver plates, knives, forks, spoons, flasks of
sauce, and condiments of different kinds--the whole interior, as a
painter would have called it, has been depicted with all accuracy.
Without, the view on which the windows opened was indeed most lovely.
The day had been very bright and calm; there was not a single cloud in
the pale transparent heaven, and the sun, which had shone cheerfully all
day from his first rising in the east, till now when he was hanging like
a ball of bloody fire in the thin filmy haze which curtained the
horizon, was still shooting his long rays, and casting many a shadow
over the slopes and hollows which diversified the scene.
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