tch the "Chinese room," at the expense of some small rooms on the
upper floor; and the windows and doors had been suited to
eighteenth-century taste. But the old books in the old latticed shelves
which the Puritan founder of the family had bought in the days of the
Long Parliament were still there; so were the chairs in which that
worthy had sat to read a tract of Milton's or of Baxter's, or the table
at which he had penned his letters to Hampden or Fairfax, or to his old
friend--on the wrong side--Edmund Verney the standard-bearer. Only the
worm-eaten shelves were dropping from their supports, and the books lay
in mouldy confusion; the roofs had great holes and gaps, whence the
laths hung dismally down, and bats came flitting in the dusk; and there
were rotten places in the carpetless floor.

"I have tried my best," said Marcella, dolefully, stooping to look at a
hole in the floor. "I got a bit of board and some nails, and tried to
mend some of these places myself. But I only broke the rotten wood away;
and papa was angry, and said I did more harm than good. I did get a
carpenter to mend some of the chairs; but one doesn't know where to
begin. I have cleaned and mended some of the books, but--"

She looked sadly round the musty, forlorn place.

"But not so well, I am afraid, as any second-hand bookseller's
apprentice could have done it," said Wharton, shaking his head. "It's
maddening to think what duffers we gentlefolks are!"

"Why do you harp on that?" said Marcella, quickly. She had been taking
him over the house, and was in twenty minds again as to whether and how
much she liked him.

"Because I have been reading some Board of Trade reports before
breakfast," said Wharton, "on one or two of the Birmingham industries in
particular. Goodness! what an amount of knowledge and skill and resource
these fellows have that I go about calling the 'lower orders.' I wonder
how long they are going to let me rule over them!"

"I suppose brain-power and education count for something still?" said
Marcella, half scornfully.

"I am greatly obliged to the world for thinking so," said Wharton with
emphasis, "and for thinking so about the particular kind of brain-power
I happen to possess, which is the point. The processes by which a
Birmingham jeweller makes the wonderful things which we attribute to
'French taste' when we see them in the shops of the Rue de la Paix are,
of course, mere imbecility--compared to my performances i