The room was large, low, and irregularly shaped, with neither fire-place nor stove, and only one dormer window opening to the south, and upon a wide waste of tiled roofs and smoking chimneys. The floor was bare, except a strip of faded carpet stretched in front of a small single bedstead; and the additional furniture consisted of two chairs, a tall table where hung a mirror, and a washstand that held beside bowl and pitcher a candlestick and china cup. On the table were several books, a plate and knife, and a partially opened package disclosed a loaf of bread, some cheese, and an apple.
In front of the window a piece of plank had been rudely fastened, and here stood two wooden boxes containing a few violets, mignonette, and one very luxuriant rose-geranium.
The faded blue cambric curtain was twisted into a knot, and as it was now nearly noon, the sun shone in and made a patch of gold on the stained and dusky floor.
On the bed lay the straw hat, garlanded with roses that had lost their primitive tints, and before the window in a low chair sat the lonely lodger.
On her knees rested a cushion, across which was stretched a parchment pattern bristling with pins, and with bobbins she was swiftly knitting a piece of gossamer lace, by throwing the fine threads around the pins.
Over the floor floated her delicate lilac dress, and the sleeves were looped back to escape the forest of pins.
Dr. Grey had only a three-quarter view of the face that 453 bent over the cushion, and though it was sadly altered in every lineament,—was whiter and thinner than he had ever seen it,—yet it was impossible to mistake the emaciated features of Salome Owen.
The large, handsome head, had been shorn of its crown of glossy braids that once encircled it like a jet tiara, and the short locks clustered with childlike grace and beauty around the gleaming white brow and temples.
There was not a vestige of color in the whilom scarlet mouth, whose thin lines were now scarcely perceptible; and, in the finer oval of her cheeks, and along the polished chin, the purplish veins showed their delicate tracery. The hands were waxen and almost transparent, and the figure was wasted beyond the boundaries of symmetry.
In the knot of ribbon that fastened her narrow linen collar, she had arranged a sprig of mignonette, that now dropped upon the cushion as she bent over it. She paused, brushed it off, and for a few seconds her beautiful hazel eyes were fixed on the blue sky that bordered her window.