lapidated Cupids, over the mantel-piece; the two or three Sheraton
arm-chairs and settees, covered with threadbare needle-work from the
days of "Evelina"; a carpet of old and well-preserved Brussels--blue
arabesques on a white ground; one or two pieces of old satin-wood
furniture, very fine and perfect; a heavy centre-table, its cloth
garnished with some early Victorian wool-work, and a pair of pink glass
vases; on another small table close by, of a most dainty and
spindle-legged correctness, a set of Indian chessmen under a glass
shade; and on another a collection of tiny animals, stags and dogs for
the most part, deftly "pinched" out of soft paper, also under glass, and
as perfect as when their slender limbs were first fashioned by Cousin
Mary Leicester's mother, somewhere about the year that Marie Antoinette
mounted the scaffold. These various elements, ugly and beautiful,
combined to make a general effect--clean, fastidious, frugal, and
refined--that was, in truth, full of a sort of acid charm.

"Oh, I like it! I like it so much!" cried Julie, throwing herself down
into one of the straight-backed arm-chairs and looking first round the
walls and then through the windows to the gardens outside.

"My dear," said the Duchess, flitting from one thing to another,
frowning and a little fussed, "those curtains won't do at all. I must
send some from home."

"No, no, Evelyn. Not a thing shall be changed. You shall lend it me just
as it is or not at all. What a character it has! I _taste_ the person
who lived here."

"Cousin Mary Leicester?" said the Duchess. "Well, she was rather an
oddity. She was Low Church, like my mother-in-law; but, oh, so much
nicer! Once I let her come to Grosvenor Square and speak to the servants
about going to church. The groom of the chambers said she was 'a dear
old lady, and if she were _his_ cousin he wouldn't mind her being a bit
touched,' My maid said she had no idea poke-bonnets could be so _sweet_.
It made her understand what the Queen looked like when she was young.
And none of them have ever been to church since that I can make out.
There was one very curious thing about Cousin Mary Leicester," added the
Duchess, slowly--"she had second sight. She _saw_ her old mother, in
this room, once or twice, after she had been dead for years. And she saw
Freddie once, when he was away on a long voyage--"

"Ghosts, too!" said Julie, crossing her hands before her with a little
shiver--"that complet