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Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: CHAPTER III. ANYTHING BUT STILL LIFE. Penalva Court, about half a mile from the quay, is like a house in a story; a house of seven gables, and those very shaky ones; a house of useless long passages, useless turrets, vast lumber attics where maids see ghosts, lofty garden and yard walls of gray stone, round which the wind and rain are lashing through the dreary darkness; low oak- ribbed ceilings; windows which once were mullioned with stone, but now with wood painted white; walls which were once oak-wainscot, but have been painted like the mullions, to the disgust of Elsley Vavasour, poet, its occupant in March, I854, who forgot that, while the oak was left dark, no man could have seen to read in the rooms a yard from the window. He has, however, little reason to complain of the one drawing-room, where he and his wife are sitting, so pleasant has she made it look, in spite of the plainness of the furniture. A bright log-fire is burning on the hearth. There are a few good books too, and a few handsome prints; while some really valuable knick-knacks are set out, with pardonable ostentation, on a little table covered with crimson velvet. It is only cotton velvet, if you look close at it; but the things are pretty enough to catch the eye of all visitors; and Mrs. Heale, the doctor's wife (who always calls Mrs. Vavasour my lady, though she does not love her), and Mrs. Trebooze of Trebooze, always finger them over when they have an opportunity, and whisper to each other, half contemptuously, Ah, poor thing there's a sign that she has seen better days. And better days, in one sense, Mrs. Vavasour has seen. I am afraid, indeed, that she has more than once regretted the morning when she ran away in a hack-cab from her brother Lord Scoutbush's house in Eaton S...
| ISBN-13 | 9780217412834 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10 | 0217412831 |
| Weight | 1.38 Pounds |
| Dimensions | 9.00 x 6.00 x 0.95 In |
| List Price | $29.50 |
| Format | Paperback |
|---|---|
| Pages | 428 pages |
| Publisher | |
| Published On | 2009-08-01 |
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