Mrs. Stokes soon engaged him in
easy chat, but Bessie sat by in perplexed rumination, trying to
reconcile the existence of that little flaxen-haired boy with her
preconceived notions of her bachelor uncle. The view of him had let in a
light upon her future that pleased while it confused her. The reason it
pleased her she would discern as her thoughts cleared. At this moment
she was dazzled by a series of surprises. First, by the sight of that
cherub, and then by the order that reigned through this quaint and
narrow house where her learned kinsman lived. They had come up a winding
stair into a large, light hall, lined with books and peopled by marble
sages on pedestals, from which opened two doors--the one into a small
red parlor where the philosopher ate, the other into a long room looking
to the garden and the minster, furnished with the choicest collections
of his travelled youth. The "omnibus" of Canon Fournier used to be all
dusty disorder. Bessie's silence and her vagrant eyes misled her uncle
into the supposition that his old stones, old canvases, and ponderous
quartoes interested her curiosity, and noticing that they settled at
length, with an intelligent scrutiny, on some object beyond him, he
asked what it was, and moved to see.
Nothing rich, nothing rare or ancient--only the tail and woolly
hind-quarters of a toy lamb extruded from the imperfectly closed door of
a cupboard below a bookcase.
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