Beyond the Dreams of Avarice; A Novel (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1895. Excerpt: ... CHAPTER VIII THE PORTRAITS They closed the door and went down to the next floor. Here there were three bedrooms, all furnished alike and with solidity. Each had a great mahogany four-poster, a mahogany chest of drawers, a mahogany dressing-table, and two mahogany chairs; there was a carpet in each; and the hangings were still round the beds, but in dusty, moth-eaten tatters and rags. There were also shelves and a cupboard in each room. On the shelves were books--school-books of the early part of this century. Latin grammars in Latin, Greek grammars in Latin, Ovid and Cicero and Cornelius Nepos, Gordon's Geography, the Greek Testament, and so forth. There seemed no reason to linger in the room. But Margaret opened the drawers. Strange they were all filled with things. She looked into the cupboards; they also were filled with things--clothes, personal effects. "Why," she cried, "they did not even take away their clothes Oh I know now. They left them here when they ran away, and here they have remained ever since. I will tell you directly all about them, Lucian. Look These silk gloves must have belonged to Lucinda--your great-aunt. She ran away. And in the other room there are things with the initials H. C. B.--your great-uncle Henry; and others with the initials of C. C. B. and of J. C. B.--your great-uncles Charles and James. They, too, ran away. I will tell you why presently." On the first floor there were two rooms only, at the front and the back. They opened the door of the room at the back. It was furnished exactly like the rooms overhead, only that the four-poster was larger. The carpet and the hangings and the curtains were quite as moth-eaten and ragged as those upstairs. "This is the room of the master," said Margaret--" your grandfather's room...