Charlotte had had one brother, who had died some ten years before, when he was twenty.

The north chamber had been his room, the bureau drawers were packed with his clothes, and the silk hat which had been the pride of his early manhood hung on the nail where he had left it, and also his Sunday coat.

His mother would not have them removed, but kept them there, with frequent brushings, to guard against dust and moths.
Always when Charlotte entered this small long room, which was full of wavering lines from its uneven floor and walls and ceiling and the long arabesques on its old blue-and-white paper, whose green paper curtains with fringed white dimity ones drooping over them were always drawn, and in summertime when the windows were open undulated in the wind, she had the sense of a presence, dim, but as positive as the visions she had used to have of faces in the wandering design of the old wall-paper when she had studied it in her childhood.

Ever since her brother's death she had had this sense of his presence in his room; now she thought no more of it than of any familiar figure.
All the grief at his death had vanished, but she never entered his old room that the thought of him did not rise up before her and stay with her while she remained.
Now, when she opened the door, and the opposite green and white curtains flew out in the draught towards her, they were no more evident than this presence to which she now gave no thought, and pushed by her brother's memory without a glance.
Rose followed her to the bed.

A white linen sheet was laid over the chintz counterpane.