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Updated: May 1, 2025
First attention properly goes to the wide chimney piece with its unusual, but attractive overmantel paneling, low arched and marble-faced fireplace opening, beautiful brass fender and andirons. The symmetrical arrangement of two flanking china closets, with round-headed double doors recalling those shown at Whitby Hall and Mount Pleasant, is most effective.
"Dam' pretty girl, that governess of yours, or whatever she is," said Mr. Moss, biting the end from a cigar in the smoking-room after dinner. "Lucky beggar you are, Bob. My mater won't have even a servant in the place that wouldn't look amiss in a monkey-house. Knows me too well, unfortunately," and Mr. Moss, taking a squint at himself in the overmantel, laughed well enough pleased.
No other sound broke the stillness of that quiet sunset hour save the solemn ticking of the long, old-fashioned clock at the farther end of the big, book-lined room, with its wide fireplace, great overmantel of carved stone with emblazoned arms, and its three long windows of old stained glass which gave it a somewhat ecclesiastical aspect.
Finest of all, perhaps, is a chamber on the second floor overlooking the river that must, according to the very nature of things, have been the boudoir of the mistress of Mount Pleasant. The architectural treatment of the fireplace end of this room, with exquisite carving above the overmantel panel and above the closet doors at each side, is greatly admired by all who see it.
The timepiece on the overmantel chimed melodiously the hour of ten, and then, startling in the suddenness with which it broke the immediate silence, another sound vibrated through the house, and brought madame to her feet, in a breathless mingling of hope and dread. Some one was knocking sharply on the door below.
The primness of the whatnot decorated with pieces of treasured china, the big gilt-framed overmantel, and the old punch-bowl filled with pot-pourri, all spoke mutely of the thin-nosed old spinster to whom the veriest speck of dust was an abomination.
We went into the dining-room. I took her hand which was cold, in spite of the July warmth. "Well, my dear," said I. "What do you think of my young savage from Asia Minor?" Judith laughed I am sure not naturally. "Is that all you wanted to say to me?" She withdrew her hand, and tidied her hair in the mirror of the overmantel. "I think she is a most uninteresting young woman. I am disappointed.
In the general arrangement of the design, this chimney piece follows closely that of the one above, except that top, sides and bottom of the overmantel panel frame are alike. As at Whitby Hall the familiar Grecian fret very acceptably occupies the space between the inner and outer moldings of this frame and obviates the need of any elaborate carved decoration above the panel.
And then the furniture the 'elegant drawing-room suite' in brilliant plush and shiny satin, the cheap cabinets, and the ready-made black and gilt overmantel, with its panels of swans, hawthorn-blossom, and landscapes sketchily daubed on dead gold surely it had all been transferred bodily from the stage of some carelessly mounted farcical comedy!
In the right-hand corner stood the bed on which the clothes were still tumbled; in the centre of the chamber was a table all littered with the disorder of a meal partaken; on the left, by the window, sat Robespierre at his writing-table, and from the overmantel at the back of the room a marble counterpart of Robespierre's own head and shoulders looked down upon the newcomer.
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