Madelon and
Burr exchanged a murmur of salutations and passed each other.
Madelon went directly into Lot's house, to his sitting-room, as she
was used to do lately, and found Lot standing in the midst of the
room, waiting for her, with a lighted candle in his hand.
"I heard your footstep when you came through that open space, where
the road has a hollow echo," he said; "and I have been waiting for
you ever since."
"You could not hear me; it is a half-mile away," said Madelon.
"A half-mile! what's a hundred miles when 'tis the heart that
listens, and not the ears? Come; I have something I want to show
you."
Lot led the way and Madelon followed out of the room across the front
entry, with its spiral of stair mounting its landscape-papered
height, and Lot opened the door of the opposite room, the great north
parlor. "Wait here a minute," he said to Madelon, and she waited in
the entry after he entered until he called her to follow.
Lot had lighted every candle in the great branching candelabra upon
the shelf, and the room was full of light. Madelon looked about her,
and even her despairing calm was stirred a little. Never had she seen
or dreamed of a room like this. She grasped no details; her
bewildered eyes saw them all melting into each other, combining newly
and vanishing like kaleidoscopic pictures--folds and gleaming
stretches of crimson damask and velvet, the dark polish of precious
woods, spots and arabesques of gold and the satin shimmer of
wall-paper, lights and shades of steel engravings, and elegant and
graceful lady-treasures of gilded books and work-boxes and vases on
shelf and tables.
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