CHAPTER IX - IN WHICH MR. NICHOLSON ACCEPTS THE PRINCIPLE OF

AN ALLOWANCE

IN spite of the horrors of the day and the tea-drinking of

the night, John slept the sleep of infancy. He was awakened

by the maid, as it might have been ten years ago, tapping at

the door. The winter sunrise was painting the east; and as

the window was to the back of the house, it shone into the

room with many strange colours of refracted light. Without,

the houses were all cleanly roofed with snow; the garden

walls were coped with it a foot in height; the greens lay

glittering. Yet strange as snow had grown to John during his

years upon the Bay of San Francisco, it was what he saw

within that most affected him. For it was to his own room

that Alexander had been promoted; there was the old paper

with the device of flowers, in which a cunning fancy might

yet detect the face of Skinny Jim, of the Academy, John's

former dominie; there was the old chest of drawers; there

were the chairs - one, two, three - three as before. Only

the carpet was new, and the litter of Alexander's clothes and

books and drawing materials, and a pencil-drawing on the

wall, which (in John's eyes) appeared a marvel of

proficiency.

Tales and Fantasies