"I daresay they are still extant in some lumber-room in the roof, my dear. Your father took very little of the old furniture away with him, and there was nothing sold. We'll explore the garrets some day, and look for your Indian cabinets.—Will you take Clarissa to her rooms, Sophy, and see what she thinks of our arrangements?"
Miss Granger would gladly have delegated this office to a servant; but her father's word was law; so she led the way to a suite of apartments which Daniel Granger had ordered to be prepared for his young wife, and which Clarissa had not yet been allowed to see. They had been kept as a pleasant surprise for her coming home.
Had she been a princess of the blood royal, she could not have had finer rooms, or a more perfect taste in the arrangement of them. Money can do so much, when the man who dispenses it has the art of intrusting the carrying out of his desires to the best workmen.
Clarissa was delighted with everything, and really grateful for the generous affection which had done so much to gratify her.
"It is all a great deal too handsome," she said.
"I am glad you like the style in which they have carried out papa's ideas," replied Miss Granger; "for my own part, I like plainer furniture, and more room for one's work; but it is all a matter of taste."
They were in the boudoir, a perfect gem of a room, with satin-wood furniture and pale green-silk hangings; its only ornaments a set of priceless Wedgwood vases in cream colour and white, and a few water-coloured sketches by Turner, and Creswick, and Stanfield. The dressing-room opened out of this and was furnished in the same style, with a dressing-table that was a marvel of art and splendour, the looking-glass in a frame of oxydised silver, between two monster jewel-cases of ebony and malachite with oxydised silver mouldings. One entire side of this room was occupied by an inlaid maple wardrobe, with seven doors, and Clarissa's monogram on all of them—a receptacle that might have contained the multifarious costumes of a Princess Metternich.
It would have been difficult for Clarissa not to be pleased with such tribute, ungracious not to have expressed her pleasure; so when Daniel Granger came presently to ask how she liked the rooms, she was not slow to give utterance to her admiration.
"You give me so much more than I deserve, Mr. Granger," she said, after having admired everything; "I feel almost humiliated by your generosity."
"Clarissa," exclaimed her husband, putting his two hands upon her
shoulders, and looking gravely down at her, "when will you remember that
I have a Christian name? When am I to be something more to you than Mr.
Granger?"