On entering the dining-room, by the orders of the individual in
gaiters, Rebecca found that apartment not more cheerful than such
rooms usually are, when genteel families are out of town. The
faithful chambers seem, as it were, to mourn the absence of their
masters. The turkey carpet has rolled itself up, and retired
sulkily under the sideboard: the pictures have hidden their faces
behind old sheets of brown paper: the ceiling lamp is muffled up in
a dismal sack of brown holland: the window-curtains have disappeared
under all sorts of shabby envelopes: the marble bust of Sir Walpole
Crawley is looking from its black corner at the bare boards and the
oiled fire-irons, and the empty card-racks over the mantelpiece: the
cellaret has lurked away behind the carpet: the chairs are turned up
heads and tails along the walls: and in the dark corner opposite the
statue, is an old-fashioned crabbed knife-box, locked and sitting on
a dumb waiter.
Two kitchen chairs, and a round table, and an attenuated old poker
and tongs were, however, gathered round the fire-place, as was a
saucepan over a feeble sputtering fire. There was a bit of cheese
and bread, and a tin candlestick on the table, and a little black
porter in a pint-pot.
"Had your dinner, I suppose? It is not too warm for you? Like a drop
of beer?"
"Where is Sir Pitt Crawley?" said Miss Sharp majestically.
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