The young lord himself conducted his friend, General Browne, to
the chamber destined for him, which answered the description he
had given of it, being comfortable, but old-fashioned, The bed
was of the massive form used in the end of the seventeenth
century, and the curtains of faded silk, heavily trimmed with
tarnished gold. But then the sheets, pillows, and blankets
looked delightful to the campaigner, when he thought of his
"mansion, the cask." There was an air of gloom in the tapestry
hangings, which, with their worn-out graces, curtained the walls
of the little chamber, and gently undulated as the autumnal
breeze found its way through the ancient lattice window, which
pattered and whistled as the air gained entrance. The toilet,
too, with its mirror, turbaned after the manner of the beginning
of the century, with a coiffure of murrey-coloured silk, and its
hundred strange-shaped boxes, providing for arrangements which
had been obsolete for more than fifty years, had an antique, and
in so far a melancholy, aspect. But nothing could blaze more
brightly and cheerfully than the two large wax candles; or if
aught could rival them, it was the flaming, bickering fagots in
the chimney, that sent at once their gleam and their warmth
through the snug apartment, which, notwithstanding the general
antiquity of its appearance, was not wanting in the least
convenience that modern habits rendered either necessary or
desirable.
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