Song of the Bell.' The
window curtains are of velvet, of just the shade of purple that nestles
in the centre of the most splendid kind of fuchsia, and have an Etruscan
border and heavy fringes of gold bullion. The walls are covered with a
crimson velvet paper, of the hue of the outer petals of that same
fuchsia, with little golden suns shining over it everywhere. One end of
the room is further lighted up by a portrait of the terrestrial fury
Etna, in a full suit of grape vines and an explosion of fiery wrath.
Opposite is a spirited scene, by an artist who shall be nameless,
suggested by a passage in an interesting sermon by Jonathan Edwards. The
contemplation of the latter picture, especially, makes a chance
sensation of chilliness a luxury rather than the contrary.

My tawny Scotch terrier, Wye-I, always takes up his position on the
purple plush cushion at one side of the fireplace, and the Maltese cat,
Cattiva, on the crimson one opposite, by instinct, because most becoming
severally to their complexions. The cat never catches mice. There are no
mice in my castle for her to catch. The dog is much attached to her. He
is considered remarkably intelligent. In gratitude for my forbearing to
cut off his tail, he uses it as a brush, watches the coals, and, when
they snap out, sweeps them up with it. He sometimes, with a natural
sensibility which does him no discredit, accompanies the performance
with the appropriate music which has earned him his name.

My summer parlor is much larger. It is paved with little hexagonal
tiles, green, purple, and white alternately, like a bed of cool violets,
with a border of marine shells in mosaic. The walls are cloaked as
greatly as the _Cloaca Maxima_, with verdant leaves, light and dark,
through which, here and there, peeps a rock. There is no arsenic among
them. The windows look seaward to see the ships come and go. Venetian
blinds, of the kind that turn up and down, admit only green light at
noon, softer or brighter according to my mood. Lace curtains sweep the
floor with a slumberous sound when the sea breeze breathes in. Some of
my visitors might say that this room was too empty. I should promptly
disagree with them. To a person of correct taste, not to speak of a
philanthropic bias, it must be painful to see, in warm weather, anything
which calls up a vision of warm handmaidens, laborious with their brooms
and dusters. Therefore I must persist in admitting here little furniture
bes