s spacious, but which had a more inhabited look, a cheerful
fire, tables covered with books and papers, and two individuals busily
at work with their pens; he gave the card to a gentleman who wore also
the cassock, and who stood before the fire with a book in his hand, and
apparently dictating to one of the writers.
"Impossible!" said the gentleman shaking his head; "I could not even go
in, as Monsignore Berwick is with his eminence."
"But what shall I do?" said the attendant; "his eminence said that when
Mr. Giles called he never was to be denied."
"The monsignore has been here a long time; you must beg Mr. Giles to
wait. Make him comfortable; give him a newspaper; not the Tablet, the
Times; men like Mr. Giles love reading the advertisements. Or stop, give
him this, his eminence's lecture on geology; it will show him the Church
has no fear of science. Ah! there's my bell; Mr. Giles will not have
to wait long." So saying, the gentleman put down his volume and
disappeared, through an antechamber, into a farther apartment.
It was a library, of moderate dimensions, and yet its well-filled
shelves contained all the weapons of learning and controversy which the
deepest and the most active of ecclesiastical champions could require.
It was unlike modern libraries, for it was one in which folios greatly
predominated; and they stood in solemn and sometimes magnificent array,
for they bore, many of them, on their ancient though costly bindings,
the proofs that they had belonged to many a prince and even sovereign of
the Church. Over the mantel-piece hung a portrait of his holiness
Pius IX., and on the table, in the midst of many papers, was an ivory
crucifix.
The master of the library had risen from his seat when the chief
secretary entered, and was receiving an obeisance. Above the middle
height, his stature seemed magnified by the attenuation of his form. It
seemed that the soul never had so frail and fragile a tenement. He was
dressed in a dark cassock with a red border, and wore scarlet stockings;
and over his cassock a purple tippet, and on his breast a small golden
cross. His countenance was naturally of an extreme pallor, though at
this moment slightly flushed with the animation of a deeply-interesting
conference. His cheeks were hollow, and his gray eyes seemed sunk
into his clear and noble brow, but they flashed with irresistible
penetration. Such was Cardinal Grandison.
"All that I can do is," said his emine
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