A Whirl Asunder by Gertrude Atherton

Helena Belmont saw little of her company for two days. She spent part of the time in the forest, the rest in her boudoir, a long room on the east side of the house opening into her bedroom at one end and into a small library at the other. The bedroom was a pretty thing of pale pink and green, and white lace. The library, lined from floor to ceiling with books, many several generations old, had only a rug on the bare floor, a table and several upright chairs. The walls of the boudoir were panelled with the beautiful delicately-veined redwood the forest trees conceal under their forbidding bark. The ceiling was arched and heavily beamed. The curtains of doors and windows, the deep chairs and couches, the rugs on the dark floor were of Smyrna stuffs whose only tangible color was a red that was almost black. A redwood mantel was built to the ceiling; a large table of the same wood, heavily carved, was covered with books and costly trifles. The deep window seats were also upholstered.

The Castilian roses nodded against the pane, but Helena could look above the garden wall into the forest on the mountain.