The room was square and crowded.

Shelves ran all the way round it, tightly filled with books.

In the center was a large writing-table, littered with papers, and on each side of the fireplace stood two worn, but comfortable, arm-chairs, each with a reading-lamp at its side.

There was nothing beautiful in the furniture, and yet the room had its own charm.
The house was a corner house and had once been a single dwelling.

The shape of the room, its woodwork, its doors, its flat, white marble mantelpiece, belonged to an era of simple taste and good workmanship; but the greatest charm of the room was the view from the windows, of which it had four, two that looked east and two south, and gave a glimpse of the East River and its bridges.
Wayne was not sorry his mother was out.