and strange musical instruments, with flying cherubs, and
fair faces in laurel-wreathed medallions; while in the middle of the
Hall a great oriel window broke the dim, venerable surfaces of wood and
tapestry with stretches of jewelled light. Tables crowded with antiques,
with Tanagra figures or Greek verses, with Florentine bronzes or
specimens of the wilful, vivacious wood-carving of seventeenth century
Spain, stood scattered on the Persian carpets. And, to complete the
whole, the gardeners had just been at work on the corners of the hall
and of the great window, so that the hard-won subtleties of man's
bygone handiwork, with which the splendid room was incrusted from top
to bottom, were masked and renewed here and there by the careless, easy
splendor of flowers, which had but to bloom in order to eclipse them
all.

Robert was at home in the great pile, where for many months he had gone
freely in and out on his way to the library, and the housekeeper only
met him to make an apology for her working dress, and to hand over to
him the keys of the library bookcases, with the fretful comment that
seemed to have in it the ghostly voice of generations of housemaids, Oh
lor', sir, they are a trouble, them books!'

From the drawing-rooms, full of a more modern and less poetical
magnificence, where Langham turned restless and refractory, Elsmere with
a smile took his guest silently back into the hall, and opened a carved
door behind a curtain. Passing through, they found themselves in a long
passage lighted by small windows on the left-hand side.

'This passage, please notice,' said Robert, 'leads to nothing but the
wing containing the library, or rather libraries, which is the oldest
part of the house. I always enter it with a kind of pleasing awe!
Consider these carpets, which keep out every sound, and look how
everything gets older as we go on.'

For half-way down the passage the ceiling seemed to descend upon their
heads, the flooring became uneven, and woodwork and walls showed that
they had passed from the Jacobean house into the much older Tudor
building. Presently Robert led the way up a few shallow steps, pushed
open a heavy door, also covered by curtains, and bade his companion
enter.

They found themselves in a low, immense room, running at right angles
to the passage they had just quitted. The long diamond-paned window,
filling almost half of the opposite wall, faced the door by which they
had come in; the hea