For the most part it spoke of unmistakable though decent poverty.

It was nearly bare of furniture, and what little there was was of the cheapest--a small kitchen table and three Windsor chairs (two of them with arms); a threadbare string carpet on the floor, and a cheap cotton cloth on the table; these, with a set of bookshelves, frankly constructed of grocer's boxes, formed the entire suite.

And yet, despite its poverty, the place exhaled an air of homely if rather ascetic comfort, and the taste was irreproachable.

The quiet russet of the tablecloth struck a pleasant harmony with the subdued bluish green of the worn carpet; the Windsor chairs and the legs of the table had been carefully denuded of their glaring varnish and stained a sober brown; and the austerity of the whole was relieved by a ginger-jar filled with fresh-cut flowers and set in the middle of the table.
But the contrasts of which I have spoken were most singular and puzzling.

There were the bookshelves, for instance, home-made and stained at the cost of a few pence, but filled with recent and costly works on archaeology and ancient art.