Just before Madelon reached Lot Gordon’s house, she met Burr going to court Dorothy.  They were to be married in two weeks more.  Madelon and Burr exchanged a murmur of salutations and passed each other.

Madelon went directly into Lot’s house, to his sitting-room, as she was used to do lately, and found Lot standing in the midst of the room, waiting for her, with a lighted candle in his hand.

“I heard your footstep when you came through that open space, where the road has a hollow echo,” he said; “and I have been waiting for you ever since.”

“You could not hear me; it is a half-mile away,” said Madelon.

“A half-mile! what’s a hundred miles when ’tis the heart that listens, and not the ears?  Come; I have something I want to show you.”

Lot led the way and Madelon followed out of the room across the front entry, with its spiral of stair mounting its landscape-papered height, and Lot opened the door of the opposite room, the great north parlor.  “Wait here a minute,” he said to Madelon, and she waited in the entry after he entered until he called her to follow.

Lot had lighted every candle in the great branching candelabra upon the shelf, and the room was full of light.  Madelon looked about her, and even her despairing calm was stirred a little.  Never had she seen or dreamed of a room like this.  She grasped no details; her bewildered eyes saw them all melting into each other, combining newly and vanishing like kaleidoscopic pictures—­folds and gleaming stretches of crimson damask and velvet, the dark polish of precious woods, spots and arabesques of gold and the satin shimmer of wall-paper, lights and shades of steel engravings, and elegant and graceful lady-treasures of gilded books and work-boxes and vases on shelf and tables.  There was even a little piano, the only one in the village, with slender, fluted legs, and a mother-of-pearl garland over the key-board.

“I have had this all newly furnished for you.  I hope it may please you,” said Lot; and he looked at Madelon with hollow, wistful eyes.

That brought her to herself.  “It is very pretty,” she replied, and turned away.

Lot sighed.  “Well, I have something more to show you,” said he, and went forlornly before her, stooping weakly and coughing now and then, into the great middle room of the house, which was fitted up with carven oak which Governor Winthrop might have used.  Here, too, Lot lighted all the branches of the candelabra on the shelf; and the great buffet directly responded with the dazzling white glitter of silver from the cream-jugs and ewers and spoons thereon.

Then Lot threw open the fine carved doors of the cupboard, and the shelves were covered with precious blue china, brought from over seas, and wine-glasses like bubbles of crystal, and decanters as graceful as plumes.

“Do you like it, Madelon?” Lot asked; and Madelon replied, as before, that it was pretty.