Yorke lit the candles--huge waxen ones, such as the pious soul in peril sees in his mind's eye, and promises to his saint--and looked around him with curiosity.

Like the little Marchioness of Mr.Richard Swiveller, he had never seen such things, "except in shops;" or rather, he had seen single specimens of such exposed in windows of great furniture warehouses, rather as a wonder and a show than with any hope to tempt a purchaser.
On one hand stood an ebony cabinet, elaborately carved with fruit and flowers; it was divided into three parts, and their shut doors faced with plate-glass gave it the appearance of a tripartite altar with its sacred fire kindled.

A casket almost as large glowed close beside it, enriched with figures and landscapes, and with shining locks and hinges, as he afterward discovered, of solid gold.

A book-case of the same precious wood was filled with volumes bound in scarlet--all French novels, superbly if not very decorously illustrated.

But the article which astonished the new tenant of this chamber most was the ebony escritoire that occupied its centre, with every thing set out for ornament or use that is seen on a lady's writing-table.