"
Aunt Ruth puzzled a little over this speech, but made nothing of it and
wisely let it go. The stairs were easy, extremely easy, and so heavily
padded that she seemed to herself merely to be walking up a slight,
velvet-floored incline. The whole house, it may be explained, was fitted
and furnished after the style of that period in the latter half of the
last century, when heavily carpeted floors, heavily shrouded windows,
heavily decorated walls, and heavily upholstered chairs were considered
the essentials of luxury and comfort. Old Matthew Kendrick had never
cared to make any changes, and his grandson had had too little interest
in the place to recommend them. The younger man's own private rooms he
had altered sufficiently to express his personal tastes, but the rest of
the house was to him outside the range of his concern. The whole place,
including his own quarters, was to him merely a sort of temporary
habitation. He had no plans in relation to it, no sense of
responsibility in regard to it. When he had ordered the finest suite of
rooms in the house to be put in readiness for the guests, it was
precisely as he would have requested the management of a great hotel to
place at his disposal the best they had to offer.
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