She sighed for
Arden Court as she remembered it in her childhood--the dreamy quiet of the
dull old house, brightened only by her brother's presence; the perfect
freedom of her own life, so different from the life whose every hour was
subject to the claims of others.
She had changed very much since that visit to Hale Castle. Then all the
pleasures of life were new to her--to-day they seemed all alike flat,
stale, and unprofitable. She had been surfeited with splendours and
pleasures since her marriage. The wealth which Daniel Granger so freely
lavished upon her had rendered these things common all at once. She looked
back and wondered whether she had really ever longed for a new dress, and
been gladdened by the possession of a five-pound note.
* * * * *
CHAPTER XXIX.
"IF I SHOULD MEET THEE--"
Mr. Wooster's villa was almost perfection in its way; but there was
something of that ostentatious simplicity whereby the parvenu endeavours
sometimes to escape from the vulgar glitter of his wealth. The chairs and
tables were of unpolished oak, and of a rustic fashion. There were no
pictures, but the walls of the dining-room were covered with majolica
panels of a pale gray ground, whereon sported groups of shepherds and
shepherdesses after Boucher, painted on the earthenware with the airiest
brush in delicate rose-colour; the drawing-room and breakfast-room were
lined with fluted chintz, in which the same delicate grays and rose-colours
were the prevailing hues.
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