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The Monarchy and old Madeira are going out; Demos and Cape wines are coming in. They call it Reform. So, you see, your absence has worked wonders. Depart for another five years, and you will return to ruined stomachs, cracked sconces, general upset, an equality made perfect by universal prostration." Austin indulged him in a laugh. "I want to hear about ourselves. How is old Ricky?"

You meet me: you smile and speak kindly; One minute I marvel and gaze, Idolatrous, worshipping blindly, Yet mindful of decorous ways. You pass; and the glory is ended, Though lustres and sconces may glow: The goddess who made the scene splendid Has vanished; and darkly I go.

The figures of the carpets were the same, their deep-piled richness, soft under foot, the same. The flowered cups of the sconces were identical with those I had seen before.

His only apparent deviation into profusion consists in the erection of a chapel to his sainted namesake, to whom he burns many a votive taper, the tapers are especially tall, and their sconces are wreathed with garlands, whenever a letter with the foreign postmark brings good news of the absent Violante and her English lord.

Now Mme. de Bargeton's salon was open every evening; and those who frequented it were so wedded to their ways, so accustomed to meet about the same tables, to play the familiar game of backgammon, to see the same faces and the same candle sconces night after night; and afterwards to cloak and shawl, and put on overshoes and hats in the old corridor, that they were quite as much attached to the steps of the staircase as to the mistress of the house.

How clear the picture: can you not see it the low raftered chamber softly alight with candles on mantel-tree and in sconces; the two fiddles soberly squeaking: the rows of demure little Boston maids, all of New England Brahmin blood, in high rolls, with nodding plumes and sparkling combs, with ruffles and mitts, little miniatures of their elegant mammas, soberly walking and curtseying through the stately minuet "with no rudeness I can assure you;" and discreetly partaking of hot and cold punch afterward.

The room was spacious and lofty, hung with arras, and lit by candles burning in silver sconces; it rang as we entered with the shrill screaming of a parrot, which was being teased by a group occupying the farther of the two hearths. Near them play was going on at one table, and primero at a second.

Some were talking with loose, loquacious tongues; some were singing; their ugly, jolly visages half illumined by the light of tallow candles stuck in iron sconces on the wall were worthy of the vulgar but faithful Dutch pencils of Schalken and Teniers. They were singing a song as the new company came in.

There were candles in their sconces over the mantel and she moved nearer to have the better light. The soft glow of the candles fell upon her shining hair, and upon cheek and brow; and I could see her bosom rise and fall with the quick-coming breath, and the pulse throbbing in her fair white neck.

Ornamental sconces held the glass cups for my food and there were decorated hoops to swing in. Altogether it was a very handsome house, yet I could not forget it was a prison house. Betty busied herself in fixing it comfortably for me, and was full of kind attentions. She begged me many times not to get frightened when the cover would be put on my cage.