air-rail lay an open space of such stately dimensions, bounded by
terminal lines of decoration so distant in the faint candle-flicker,
that the young country minister could think of no word but "palatial" to
fit it all.

At the head of the flight, Celia led the way along a wide corridor to
where it ended. Here, stretched from side to side, and suspended from
broad hoops of a copper-like metal, was a thick curtain, of a uniform
color which Theron at first thought was green, and then decided must be
blue. She pushed its heavy folds aside, and unlocked another door. He
passed under the curtain behind her, and closed the door.

The room into which he had made his way was not at all after the fashion
of any parlor he had ever seen. In the obscure light it was difficult
to tell what it resembled. He made out what he took to be a painter's
easel, standing forth independently in the centre of things. There were
rows of books on rude, low shelves. Against one of the two windows was
a big, flat writing-table--or was it a drawing-table?--littered with
papers. Under the other window was a carpenter's bench, with a large
mound of something at one end covered with a white cloth. On a table
behind the easel rose a tall mechanical contrivance, the chief feature
of which was a thick upright spiral screw. The floor was of bare
wood stained brown. The walls of this queer room had photographs and
pictures, taken apparently from illustrated papers, pinned up at random
for their only ornament.

Celia had lighted three or four other candles on the mantel. She
caught the dumfounded expression with which her guest was surveying his
surroundings, and gave a merry little laugh.

"This is my workshop," she explained. "I keep this for the things I do
badly--things I fool with. If I want to paint, or model in clay, or bind
books, or write, or draw, or turn on the lathe, or do some carpentering,
here's where I do it. All the things that make a mess which has to
be cleaned up--they are kept out here--because this is as far as the
servants are allowed to come."

She unlocked still another door as she spoke--a door which was also
concealed behind a curtain.

"Now," she said, holding up the candle so that its reddish flare rounded
with warmth the creamy fulness of her chin and throat, and glowed upon
her hair in a flame of orange light--"now I will show you what is my
very own."

CHAPTER XIX

Theron Ware looked about him with frankly undi