It will be more cheerful than in the dining-room." I could not help noticing that though her eyes showed traces of much weeping she yet wore a singularly tranquil and even radiant look, as though good news had come to her.

Indeed, the whole atmosphere of the house seemed strangely peaceful.
A servant came in to set the table, and we went upstairs to the little room within her own room where I was to sleep.

A bright fire already blazed in the grate, and Louise was busy putting out my things.

The room looked so cheerful with its chintz--a green trellis hung with roses on a white ground--that one could not be gloomy and fearful in it, even if I did not know that my dear godmother would leave the door between our rooms open at night and would wake if I but stirred.
Louise helped me to put on the one black gown I possessed, which, as it happened, was patterned with roses, a crepe de Chine fichu about the neck, and I asked Louise to take it off and find me something more becoming; but my godmother would have it so, saying that poor Joan would not grudge me a few roses, having herself found the roses of Paradise.
That quiet radiancy of my godmother seemed to diffuse itself over everything.

I know I felt happier than I had felt for a long time, and I tried to put all the trouble, and the thought that I was to marry Richard Dawson the week before Christmas, out of my mind.
Everything about the dinner-table was so pretty.