Fanny fetched her luggage from her previous billet, borrowed six
logs and some twigs from the _concierge,_ promising to fetch her an
ample store from the hills around.
All day she rummaged in the empty house--finding now a three-legged
armchair which she propped up with a stone, now a single Venetian glass
scrolled in gold for her tooth glass.
In a small room on the ground floor a beautiful piece of tapestry lay
rolled in a dusty corner. Pale birds of tarnished silver flew across its
blue ground and on the border were willows and rivers.
It covered her oak bed exactly--and by removing the pillows it looked
like a comfortable and venerable divan. The logs in the fire were soon
burnt through, and she did not like to ask for more, but leaving her
room and wandering up and down the empty house in the long, pale
afternoon, she searched for fragments of wood that might serve her.
A narrow door, built on a curve of the staircase, led to an upper storey
of large attics and her first dazzled thought was of potential loot for
her bedroom. A faint afternoon sun drained through the lattice over
floors that were heaped with household goods. A feathered brush for
cobwebs hung on a nail, she took it joyfully. Below it stood an iron
lattice for holding a kettle on an open fire. That, too, she put aside.
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