Yet it was set with
the finest china, the rarest glass, and the richest silver that the
greatest skill of the old world could supply. The chairs placed around
the table were made of unpainted wood from the forest, with seats woven
out of the coarse rushes from the river. And there, between the front
windows, stood Ruth's piano, the first in that part of the wilderness,
and as fine as the finest of its day anywhere.
It is true that something like the same confusion of luxury and wildness
was becoming more or less common throughout the country. The wain trains
which had lately followed the packhorse trains over the
Alleghanies--with the widening of the Wilderness Road--were already
bringing many comforts and even luxuries to the cabins of the well-to-do
settlers. But nothing like those which were fetched constantly to Cedar
House ever came to any other household; and it was not the family who
caused them to be brought there. For while the judge was a man of wealth
for his time and place, and able to give his family greater comfort than
his poorer neighbors could afford, he was far from having the means,
much less the taste and culture, to gather such costly, beautiful, and
rare things as were gathered together in Cedar House.
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