It is, perhaps, characteristic of Dunure that none were brought him.
The people at the public-house did not seem well pleased to see me,
and though I would fain have stayed by the kitchen fire, sent me 'ben
the hoose' into the guest-room. This guest-room at Dunure was
painted in quite aesthetic fashion. There are rooms in the same
taste not a hundred miles from London, where persons of an extreme
sensibility meet together without embarrassment. It was all in a
fine dull bottle-green and black; a grave harmonious piece of
colouring, with nothing, so far as coarser folk can judge, to hurt
the better feelings of the most exquisite purist. A cherry-red half
window-blind kept up an imaginary warmth in the cold room, and threw
quite a glow on the floor. Twelve cockle-shells and a half-penny
china figure were ranged solemnly along the mantel-shelf. Even the
spittoon was an original note, and instead of sawdust contained sea-
shells. And as for the hearthrug, it would merit an article to
itself, and a coloured diagram to help the text. It was patchwork,
but the patchwork of the poor; no glowing shreds of old brocade and
Chinese silk, shaken together in the kaleidoscope of some tasteful
housewife's fancy; but a work of art in its own way, and plainly a
labour of love.
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