The Three Miss Kings by Ada Cambridge — Read

Mrs. Duff-Scott's drawing-room, at nine or ten o'clock on Friday evening, was a pleasant sight. Very spacious, very voluptuous, in a subdued, majestic, high-toned way; very dim -- with splashes of richness -- as to walls and ceilings; very glowing and splendid -- with folds of velvety darkness -- as to window curtains and portières. The colouring of it was such as required a strong light to show how beautiful it was, but with a proud reserve, and to mark its unostentatious superiority over the glittering salons of the uneducated _nouveaux riches_, it was always more or less in a warm and mellow twilight, veiling its sombre magnificence from the vulgar eye.

Just now its main compartment was lit by wax candles in archaic candlesticks amongst the flowers and _bric-à-brac_ of an _étagère_ over the mantelpiece, and by seven shaded and coloured lamps, of various artistic devices, judiciously distributed over the abundant table-space so as to suffuse with a soft illumination the occupants of most of the wonderfully stuffed and rotund chairs and lounges grouped about the floor; and yet the side of the room was decidedly bad for reading in. "It does not light up well," was the consolation of women of Mrs. Duff-Scott's acquaintance, who still clung to pale walls and primary colours and cut-glass chandeliers, either from necessity or choice.