Nothing that art, taste, or luxury could suggest was wanting--the eye
reveled in beauty. Miss L'Estrange had refurnished the room in
accordance with her own ideas of the beautiful and artistic.
The long windows were opened, and through them one saw the rippling of
the rich green foliage in the park; the large iron balconies were filled
with flowers, fragrant mignonette, lemon-scented verbenas, purple
heliotropes, all growing in rich profusion. The spray of the little
scented fountain sparkled in the sun. Every one agreed that there was no
other room in London like the grand drawing-room at Verdun House.
There was something on that bright May afternoon more beautiful even
than the flowers, the fountains, the bright-plumaged birds in their
handsome cages, the white statues, or the pictures; that was the
mistress and queen of all this magnificence, Philippa L'Estrange. She
was reclining on a couch that had been sent from Paris--a couch made of
finest ebony, and covered with pale, rose-colored velvet. If Titian or
Velasquez had seen her as she lay there, the world would have been the
richer by an immortal work of art; Titian alone could have reproduced
those rich, marvelous colors; that perfect, queenly beauty.
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