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The pavement is of coloured marble, red, white, and blue; curtains of blue and white, the Persian royal colours, drape the windows and are hanging in graceful festoons from the pillars; the fresh morning breeze is blowing from the snow-clad mountains, and is laden with the scent of lemons and oranges, and of the Shushan lilies and Persian roses in the palace gardens.

The mouldering tapestry, which, in his father's time, had half covered the walls of this stately apartment, and half streamed from them in tatters, had given place to a complete finishing of wainscot, the cornice of which, as well as the frames of the various compartments, were ornamented with festoons of flowers and with birds, which, though carved in oak, seemed, such was the art of the chisel, actually to swell their throats and flutter their wings.

He made two speeches. One was in a low voice across the counter to Miss Willmot. The other was to the men. It was all about Miss Willmot. It was beautifully phrased. But she did not hear a word of it She was scarcely aware of the men's cheers, though the paper festoons swayed to and fro, and the Chinese lanterns shook with the violence of the shouting.

Up each of the light pillars from which spring the graceful arches that support this balcony climbs a mass of blooming vines that weave their delicate tendrils round the railing above and then trail downward again in festoons of swaying colour.

I am going to conduct you to a spot where we can talk without interruption, the exact place where the crimes of which I shall speak were committed." And resuming the gallop, Mohun led the way, amid the trailing festoons, through the fallen logs, across the Rowanty. Half an hour afterward we had reached his camp. As the sun began to decline we again mounted our horses.

A cool, dust-laden wind blew down Providence Road, twisted the branches of the tall maples along the way, tore roughly at the festoons of blooming vines over the gables of the Briars, startled the nestled doves into a sad crooning, whipped mercilessly at the row of tall hollyhocks along the garden fence, flaunted the long spikes of jack-beans and carried their quaint fragrance to pour it over the bed of sober-colored mignonette, mixing it with the pungent zinnia odor and flinging it all over into the clover field across the briar hedge.

From a dreary plain, to an interminable avenue, and from an interminable avenue to a dreary plain again. Plenty of vines there are in the open fields, but of a short low kind, and not trained in festoons, but about straight sticks. Beggars innumerable there are, everywhere; but an extraordinarily scanty population, and fewer children than I ever encountered.

Ah! in such an hour and scene as this, well might we imagine that the Faun should peep forth from those green festoons; or, that we might trace the steps of the Mountain Nymph through the thickest mazes of the glade. But the Nymphs ceased, beautiful Ione, when thou wert created!

A bed supported on massive pillars of mahogany, hung with curtains of deep red damask, stood out like a tabernacle in the centre; the two large windows, with their blinds always drawn down, were half shrouded in festoons and falls of similar drapery; the carpet was red; the table at the foot of the bed was covered with a crimson cloth; the walls were a soft fawn colour with a blush of pink in it; the wardrobe, the toilet-table, the chairs were of darkly polished old mahogany.