"She sent this from England!"
"It was made by nobody worse than a London cabinet-maker. I did not know whether you would choose to have it stand in this place, or in the only room that can properly be called your own. Come in here;—the other part of the house is, you will find, pretty much public."
"Even your study?"
"That is no exception, sometimes. I am a public man, myself."
The partition wall of this room was nicely lined with mats; the door was like a piece of the wall, swinging to noiselessly, but Mr. Rhys shewed Eleanor how she could fasten it securely on the inside. Eleanor had been taken into this room on her first arrival; but had then been unable to see anything. Now her eyes were in requisition. Here there was even more attention paid to comfort and appearances than in the dining-room. In the simplest possible manner; but somebody had been at work there who knew that elegance is attainable without the help of opulence; and that eye and hand can do what money cannot. Eye and hand had been busy everywhere. Very pretty and soft native mats were on the floor; the windows were shaded with East Indian jalousies; and not only personal convenience but tastes were regarded in the various articles of furniture and the arrangement of them. Good sense was regarded too. Camp chairs and tables were useful for packing and moving, as well as neat to the eye; white draperies relieved their simplicity; shelves were hung against the wall in one place for books, and filled; and in the floor stood an easy chair of excellent workmanship, into which Mr. Rhys immediately put Eleanor. But she started up to look at it.
"Did aunt Caxton send all these things?" she said with a tear in her eye.
"She has sent almost too many. These are but the beginning, Look here,
Eleanor."
He opened a door at one end of the room, hidden under mat hangings like the other, which disclosed a large space lined with shelves; several articles reposing on them, and on the floor below sundry chests and boxes.
"This is your storeroom. Here you may revel in the riches you do not immediately wish to display. This is yours; I have a storeroom on my own part."
"And what is in those chests and boxes, Mr. Rhys?"