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He came to himself, at long intervals, to find that he had been looking about his room and wondering how it had formerly been furnished whether a settee in buttercup or petunia satin had stood under the farther window, whether from the centre moulding of the light lofty ceiling had depended a glimmering crystal chandelier, or where the tambour-frame or the picquet-table had stood.... No, it was no good; he had far better be frankly doing nothing than getting fruitlessly tired; and he decided that he would take a walk, but, chancing to sit down for a moment, dozed in his chair instead.
That night in the chateau every one was talking about the hardihood of some thief who in sight of everybody had stolen a handsome chandelier; the Lord High Provost had already been apprised of the matter.
A cream-colored wall had been thought the appropriate thing to go with black walnut furniture, but time and dust had made the combination dreary. There were no pictures or ornaments of any kind, save the stalky, over-elaborated gas-brackets which stood on his honor's desk, and the single swinging chandelier suspended from the center of the ceiling.
The Judge was casually examining the chandelier with interest and approval. Presently, he looked down and around. "Oh, thunder! What are you waiting for, Thompson? I pass, of course!" he said testily. Steve shoved in his pile. "As I mentioned a while ago, you're not obliged to call this," he said demurely. "Just suit yourselves."
The strong light of the chandelier showed the tense lines of his finely-cut face, which was white with excitement, and his eyes burned beneath his brows with a flame too strong to be subdued by any outer light. Before he had uttered a word he had in some way imparted to many of those around him something of his own exaltation and intensity of spirit.
The doorkeeper, a venerable man, has offered to light the great chandelier expressly for me to take my sketches in the evening for two hours together, for I shall have it a candlelight effect, when the room, already very splendid, will appear ten times more so." On the 2d of January, 1822, he writes: "I have commenced to-day taking the likenesses of the members.
Finally, as the dinner hour approached, all the gas jets were ablaze; not only the side lights in the main hall, and the overhead lantern which had shed its rays on Peter's bald head, but the huge glass chandelier hung in the middle of the satin-upholstered drawing room, as well as the candelabra on the mantel with their imitation wax candles and brass wicks every thing, in fact, that could add to the brilliancy of the occasion.
And madame has a fancy for waxlights," his gaze travelling upward to the glittering chandelier. "Hum-m-m! How well they know, these women whose beauty is going off, that waxlights show less of Time's ravages than gas or electricity. Candles in the chandelier; candles in the sconces, candles on the mantelpieces. This room should be very charming when it is lighted at night."
The lovely white bed in the alcove, the three windows with lace curtains dropping to the floor, the grate with its soft, bright fire, the round table under the chandelier, with Miss Prudence writing letters and I always writing, studying, or mending. Sometimes we do not speak for an hour.
"Shall we sit down, Anne, and discuss the situation?" he said. "It is one of my grandfather's orders, so I suppose we shall have to obey." She sank gracefully into a deep chair at the foot of the library table, and motioned for him to take one near-by. The light from the chandelier fell upon her brown hair, and glinted.
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