The details of men's
surroundings did not usually interest Penhallow, but in the mills or the
far past days of military service nothing escaped him that could be of
use in the work of the hour. The stout little Baptist preacher, with his
constant every-day jollity and violent sermons, of which he had heard
from Rivers, in no way interested Penhallow. When he once said to Ann,
"The man is unneat and common," she replied, "No, he is homely, but
neither vulgar nor common. I hate his emotional performances, but the man
is good, James." "Then I do wish, Ann, he would button his waistcoat and
pull up his socks."
Now he looked about him with some unusual attention. There was no carpet.
A set of oddly coloured chairs and settees which would have pleased Ann,
a square mahogany table set on elephantine legs, completed the
furnishings of a whitewashed room, where the flies, driven indoors by
cool weather, buzzed on window glasses dull with dust. The back room had
only a writing-table, a small case of theological books, and two or
three much used volumes of American history. Penhallow looked around him
with unusually awakened pity. The gathered dust, the battered chairs, the
spider-webs in the darker corners, would have variously annoyed and
disgusted Ann Penhallow.
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