[The Lost Lady of Lone by E.D.E.N. Southworth]@TWC D-Link bookThe Lost Lady of Lone CHAPTER XII 3/28
Carpets, curtains, chair and sofa covers, and hassocks, all bright scarlet; cornices, mirrors, and picture frames, (framing cheap, showy pictures,) all in brassy looking gilt.
Through this sitting-room the girl passed into a bedroom, where, also, the furniture was in scarlet and gilt, except the white draperied bed and the dressing-table.
Here the girl threw herself down in an easy-chair saying: "I'll just bide here a bit and wash my face and hands, while ye'll gae bring my breakfast." "Yes, ma'am.
What would you like to have ?" inquired the woman. "Ait meal parritch, fust of a', to begin wi' twa kippered herrings; a sausage; a beefsteak; twa eggs; a pot o' arange marmalade; a plate of milk toast, some muffins, and some fresh rolls," concluded the girl. "Anything more, ma'am ?" dryly inquired Mrs.Rogers. "Nay--ay! Ye may bring me a mutton chop, wi' the lave." "Tea or coffee, ma'am ?" "Baith, and mak' haste wi' it," answered the girl. The old woman, smiling to herself, went out. The girl being left alone, fastened both doors of her room, hung napkins over the key-holes, drew close the scarlet curtains of her windows, and then sat down on the floor and opened the bag and turned out its contents on the carpet. Fortunatus! what a sight! Well might her fellow-passenger have heard a crash when the bag slipped from her lap to the bottom of the car! About twelve little canvas bags filled with coins, and marked variously on the sides--L50, L100, L500, L1,000. She gazed at the treasure in a sort of rapture of possession! How fast her heart beat! She did not think that there was so much money in the whole world! She began to count the bags, and add up their marked figures, to try to estimate the amount.
There were two bags marked one thousand, four marked five hundred, three marked one hundred, and three marked fifty pounds--in all twelve little canvas bags containing altogether four thousand four hundred and fifty pounds. What a mine of wealth! How she gloated over it! She longed to cut open the little canvas bags and spread the whole glittering mass of gold and silver on the carpet before her, that she might gaze upon it--not as a miser to hoard it, but as a vain beauty to spend it.
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