belonged to, which were getting sicklied o'er by the
unmistakable pale cast. The mouth had not quite relinquished rotundity
of curve for the firm angularities of middle life; and the eyes, though
keen, permeated rather than penetrated: what they had lost of their
boy-time brightness by a dozen years of hard reading lending a quietness
to their gaze which suited them well.

A lady would have said there was a smell of tobacco in the room: a man
that there was not.

Knight did not rise. He looked at a timepiece on the mantelshelf, then
turned again to his letters, pointing to a chair.

'Well, I am glad you have come. I only returned to town yesterday; now,
don't speak, Stephen, for ten minutes; I have just that time to the late
post. At the eleventh minute, I'm your man.'

Stephen sat down as if this kind of reception was by no means new, and
away went Knight's pen, beating up and down like a ship in a storm.

Cicero called the library the soul of the house; here the house was all
soul. Portions of the floor, and half the wall-space, were taken up by
book-shelves ordinary and extraordinary; the remaining parts, together
with brackets, side-tables, &c., being occupied by casts, statuettes,
medallions, and plaques of various descriptions, picked up by the owner
in his wanderings through France and Italy.

One stream only of evening sunlight came into the room from a window
quite in the corner, overlooking a court. An aquarium stood in the
window. It was a dull parallelopipedon enough for living creatures at
most hours of the day; but for a few minutes in the evening, as now, an
errant, kindly ray lighted up and warmed the little world therein, when
the many-coloured zoophytes opened and put forth their arms, the weeds
acquired a rich transparency, the shells gleamed of a more golden
yellow, and the timid community expressed gladness more plainly than in
words.

Within the prescribed ten minutes Knight flung down his pen, rang for
the boy to take the letters to the post, and at the closing of the door
exclaimed, 'There; thank God, that's done. Now, Stephen, pull your chair
round, and tell me what you have been doing all this time. Have you kept
up your Greek?'

'No.'

'How's that?'

'I haven't enough spare time.'

'That's nonsense.'

'Well, I have done a great many things, if not that. And I have done one
extraordinary thing.'

Knight turned full upon Stephen. 'Ah-ha! Now, then, let me look into
your face, p