and containing a curious collection of sacred literature, beginning with
the ancient volume entitled Wilberforce's View, including the poetry
published in a series of Lyras,--Lyra Anglicana, Lyra Germanica, and so
on,--culminating at last in the works of Dr. Pusey; the whole perhaps
exhibiting in a succinct form the stages through which Mary Carvel had
passed, or was still passing, in her religious convictions. And here
let me say at once that I am very far from intending to jest at those
same convictions of Mary Carvel's, and if you smile it is because the
picture is true, not because it is ridiculous. She may read what she
pleases, but the world would be a better place if there were more women
like her.

There were many other possessions of hers in the drawing-room: for
instance, upon the mantel-piece were placed three magnificent Wedgwood
urns, after Flaxman's designs, inherited from her father, and now of
great value; upon the tables there were several vases of old Vienna, but
of a green color, vivid enough to elicit Chrysophrasia's most eloquent
disapprobation; there were several embroideries of a sufficiently
harmless nature, the work of Mary Carvel's patient fingers, but
conceived in a style no longer popular; and on the whole, there was a
great number of objects in the drawing-room which belonged to her and by
which she set great store, but which bore decidedly the character of
English household decoration and furniture at the beginning of the
present century, and are consequently abhorrent to the true aesthete.

Chrysophrasia Dabstreak, however, had sworn to cast the shadow of beauty
over what she called the substance of the hideous, and to this end and
intention, by dint of honeyed eloquence and stinging satire, she had
persuaded John and Mary to allow her to insert stained glass in one of
the windows, which formerly opened upon and afforded a view of a certain
particularly brilliant flower bed. Beneath the many-colored light from
this Gothic window--for she insisted upon the pointed arch--Miss
Dabstreak had made her own especial corner of the drawing-room. There
one might see strange pots and plates, and withered rushes, and
fantastic greenish draperies of Eastern weft, which, however, would not
fetch five piastres a yard in the bazaar of Stamboul, curious
water-colors said to represent "impressions," though one would be shy of
meeting, beyond the bounds of an insane asylum, the individual whose
impressions