She smiled now, as she recalled these childish
imaginings, and lifting tenderly the coarse drugget, she looked at the
great green globe which her fingers used to turn in infantile curiosity.
Then leaving the library, she roamed through the house, pausing on the
first landing to gaze on the picture of the fine gentleman in a red coat,
his hand for ever on his sword. She remembered how she used to wonder whom
he was going to kill, and how sure she used to feel that at last he would
grant his adversary his life. And close by was the picture of the
wind-mill, set on the edge of the down, with the shepherd driving sheep in
the foreground. Her whole life seemed drenched with tears at the thought of
parting with these things. Every room was full of memories for her. She was
a little girl when she came to live at Ashwood, and the room at the top of
the stairs had been her nursery. There were the two beds; both were now
dismantled and bare. It was in the little bed in the corner that she used
to sleep; it was in the old four-poster that her nurse slept. And there was
the very place, in front of the fire, where she used to have her tea. The
table had disappeared, and the grate, how rusty it was! In the far corner,
by the window, there used to be a press, in which nurse kept tea and sugar.
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