Norton had cleared his brain of the
unpleasant phantoms that had invaded it during his slumbers. Being
quick and forgetive in his mental operations, even while completing
his toilet, he had formed a plan for an attack upon the kingdom of
darkness lying around him.
As he entered the room, the scene of his last night's adventure, his
face beaming with cheerfulness and courage, Adele, who was just then
laying the table, thought his appearance there like another sunrise.
After the morning salutations were over, he looked around the
apartment, observing it, in its daylight aspect, with a somewhat
puzzled air. In some respects, it was entirely unlike what he had
seen before. The broad stone hearth, with its large blazing fire, the
Dutch oven, the air of neatness and thrift, were like those of a New
England kitchen, but here the resemblance ceased.
A paper-hanging, whose originally rich hues had become in a measure
dimmed, covered the walls; and curious old pictures hung around; the
chairs and tables were of heavy dark wood, elaborately and grotesquely
carved, as was also the ebony clock in the corner, whose wonderful
mechanism had so astonished him on the previous evening. A low lounge,
covered with a crimson material, occupied a remote corner of the room,
with a Turkish mat spread on the floor before it. At the head of the
couch was a case, curiously carved, filled with books, and beneath, in
a little niche in the wall, a yellow ivory crucifix.
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