The housekeeper again bowed, and conducted Lally into the hall and up the broad stairs to a front chamber, one of the state apartments of the house. Here, soon after, she left the young girl to renovate her toilet, going again to her aged mistress.
“This is a wonderful change for me!” murmured Lally. “I must be dreaming. So lately I slept in a barn with tramps and thieves, glad of even that shelter, and now I am housed in a palace. I am afraid I shall wake up presently to find myself in the barn. Ah, I never even dreamed of such magnificence!”
She examined her surroundings with the delighted curiosity of a child. There was a fire behind the silvered bars of the low, wide grate, and its red gleams streamed out over the rich blue velvet carpet with its bordering of amber arabesques on a blue ground, and one long red spike of dancing light fell upon the amber silk curtains of the low canopied bedstead. The square pillows were covered with the daintiest of linen, frilled with real lace. The coverlet was of amber satin, embroidered with a great medallion in blue silk. The curtains were of amber satin, with blue fringe, over white lace drapery, and the couches and chairs were upholstered in amber relieved with blue.
Lally observed two doors at one side of the room, and crossing the floor softly, she opened them successively. The first door opened upon a large and handsomely fitted bath-room, with marble basin and marble floor, half covered by a Turkish rug. The other door opened into a beautiful little dressing-room, furnished to match the bed-chamber. A massive armoire of carved ebony, with doors formed of plate-glass mirrors, completely covered one side of the wall, and a long swing mirror, framed in ebony, stood opposite. A gasolier depended from the middle of the ornate ceiling, and in three of the globes a mellow light was burning.
“It is like fairy-land!” thought the girl. “All this for me—for me! I can hardly believe it.”
There were ivory-handled brushes on the low dressing bureau, and Lally handled them carefully, almost afraid to use them. Her poor garments seemed out of place in these beautiful rooms, but she had no better dress, and with a smothered sigh she bathed her face and hands in the bath-room, and brushed her hair and dress in the dressing-room. She tied anew the bow in her hair and her black sash, and her toilet was complete. She gave a last look to her new quarters, and hastened down stairs to the chamber of her benefactress.
She found Mrs. Wroat comfortably ensconced in an easy chair by her fire. The parrot’s cage swung by a stout silver chain from the ceiling; the ugly little dog lay dozing upon a cushion near the fender; and a general atmosphere of delicious warmth and coziness prevailed.
“Come here, my dear, and kiss me,” said Mrs. Wroat, not looking around, but recognizing Lally’s step.
The girl obeyed, and sat down upon a stool at the old lady’s feet. Mrs. Wroat smiled upon her and talked to her, and when Peters came in, announcing that luncheon waited, Lally and her great-aunt were in the midst of a confidential talk, and their friendship had already deepened into a mutual affection.
Luncheon was served in the dining-room, across the hall from Mrs. Wroat’s chamber. The windows of the dining-room opened into a small conservatory overlooking the garden, and the room itself, lofty and handsome, seemed to Lally the realization of one of her long-ago girlish dreams. Mrs. Wroat sat at one end of the oval table, Peters at the other, and Lally took a place at one side. The footman waited at table, but was soon dismissed, and the three were left to themselves and the enjoyment of the dainties plentifully displayed before them.