" We hastened slowly and approached the fine front.
The house was one of the happiest fruits of its freshly-feeling era,
a multitudinous cluster of fair gables and intricate chimneys, brave
projections and quiet recesses, brown old surfaces weathered to silver
and mottled roofs that testified not to seasons but to centuries. Two
broad terraces commanded the wooded horizon. Our appeal was answered by
a butler who condescended to our weakness. He renewed the assertion that
Mr. Searle was away from home, but he would himself lay our case before
the housekeeper. We would be so good, however, as to give him our cards.
This request, following so directly on the assertion that Mr. Searle
was absent, was rather resented by my companion. "Surely not for the
housekeeper."

The butler gave a diplomatic cough. "Miss Searle is at home, sir."

"Yours alone will have to serve," said my friend. I took out a card and
pencil and wrote beneath my name NEW YORK. As I stood with the pencil
poised a temptation entered into it. Without in the least considering
proprieties or results I let my implement yield--I added above my name
that of Mr. Clement Searle. What would come of it?

Before many minutes the housekeeper waited upon us--a fresh rosy little
old woman in a clean dowdy cap and a scanty sprigged gown; a quaint
careful person, but accessible to the tribute of our pleasure, to say
nothing of any other. She had the accent of the country, but the manners
of the house. Under her guidance we passed through a dozen apartments,
duly stocked with old pictures, old tapestry, old carvings, old armour,
with a hundred ornaments and treasures. The pictures were especially
valuable. The two Vandykes, the trio of rosy Rubenses, the sole and
sombre Rembrandt, glowed with conscious authenticity. A Claude, a
Murillo, a Greuze, a couple of Gainsboroughs, hung there with high
complacency. Searle strolled about, scarcely speaking, pale and grave,
with bloodshot eyes and lips compressed. He uttered no comment on what
we saw--he asked but a question or two. Missing him at last from my side
I retraced my steps and found him in a room we had just left, on a faded
old ottoman and with his elbows on his knees and his face buried in
his hands. Before him, ranged on a great credence, was a magnificent
collection of old Italian majolica; plates of every shape, with their
glaze of happy colour, jugs and vases nobly bellied and embossed. There
seemed to rise before