Well, it had been a false dawn; but at least it could be,
and was, still talked about in sad and suggestive whispers.
It seemed full then of a mysterious splendor when she entered it this
evening, candle in hand, and stood regarding it from the threshold. To
the outward eye it was nothing very startling. A shrouded bed
protruded from the wall opposite with the words "The Lord preserve
thee from all evil" illuminated in pink and gold by the girl's own
hand. An oleograph of Queen Victoria in coronation robes hung on one
side and the painted photograph of a Nonconformist divine, Bible in
hand, whiskered and cravatted, upon the other. There was a small
cloth-covered table at the foot of the bed, adorned with an almost
continuous line of brass-headed nails as a kind of beading round the
edge, in the center of which rested the plaster image of a young
person clasping a cross. A hymn-book and a Bible stood before this,
and a small jar of wilted flowers. Against the opposite wall, flanked
by dejected-looking wedding-groups, and another text or two, stood the
great mahogany wardrobe, whose removal was vaguely in contemplation.
Mrs. Nugent regarded the whole with a tender kind of severity, shaking
her head slowly from side to side, with the tin candlestick slightly
tilted.
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