Indeed, the
poor woman was attached to these mute witnesses of her happier life;
to her they had an almost consoling eloquence. In memory she saw her
flowers, as in the carpets she could trace patterns hardly visible now
to other eyes.
On going into the spacious anteroom, where twelve chairs, a barometer,
a large stove, and long, white cotton curtains, bordered with red,
suggested the dreadful waiting-room of a Government office, the
visitor felt oppressed, conscious at once of the isolation in which
the mistress lived. Grief, like pleasure, infects the atmosphere. A
first glance into any home is enough to tell you whether love or
despair reigns there.
Adeline would be found sitting in an immense bedroom with beautiful
furniture by Jacob Desmalters, of mahogany finished in the Empire
style with ormolu, which looks even less inviting than the brass-work
of Louis XVI.! It gave one a shiver to see this lonely woman sitting
on a Roman chair, a work-table with sphinxes before her, colorless,
affecting false cheerfulness, but preserving her imperial air, as she
had preserved the blue velvet gown she always wore in the house. Her
proud spirit sustained her strength and preserved her beauty.
The Baroness, by the end of her first year of banishment to this
apartment, had gauged every depth of misfortune.
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