The floor was covered with an imported carpet, mingled brown and red.

A great Bible lay upon a small marble-topped table in the center of the room.

Two larger tables stood against the wall.

Upon them lay volumes of the English classics, and a cluster of wax flowers under a glass cover, that had seemed wonderful to Dick in his childhood.
But the room awed him no more, and he turned at once to the great squares of light that faced each other from wall to wall.
A famous portrait painter had arisen at Lexington when the canebrake was scarcely yet cleared away from the heart of Kentucky.

His work was astonishing to have come out of a country yet a wilderness, and a century later he is ranked among the great painters.