But there was no creature amongst the aged furniture--nothing
with a brain to it which her soul might briefly inhabit. She returned
and sat again at the table, and the mood vanished in weariness.
But they did not linger there long. Fatigue made the ladies glad to be
shown to the rooms prepared for them. The housekeeper, the ancient
authority of the place, in every motion and tone expressing herself
wronged by their intrusion, conducted them. Every spot they passed was
plainly far more hers than theirs; only law was a tyrant, and she dared
not assert her rights! But she had allotted their rooms well, and they
approved her judgment.
Weary as she was, Hester was charmed with hers, and the more charmed the
more she surveyed it. I will not spend time or space in describing it,
but remember how wearisome and useless descriptions often are. I will
but say it was old-fashioned to her heart's content; that it seemed full
of shadowy histories, as if each succeeding occupant had left behind an
ethereal phantasmic record, a memorial imprint of presence on walls and
furniture--to which she now was to add hers. But the old sleep must have
the precedence of all the new things.
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