vy, carved mantelpiece was to their right; an open
doorway on their left, closed at present by tapestry hangings, seemed to
lead into yet other rooms.

The walls of this one were completely covered from floor to ceiling
with latticed bookcases, enclosed throughout in a frame of oak carved
in light classical relief by what appeared to be a French hand of the
sixteenth century. The checkered bindings of the books, in which the
creamy tints of vellum predominated, lined the whole surface of the wall
with a delicate sobriety of color; over the mantelpiece, the picture of
the founder of the house--a Holbein portrait, glorious in red robes and
fur and golden necklace--seemed to gather up and give voice to all the
dignity and impressiveness of the room beneath him; while on the window
side the book-lined wall was, as it were, replaced by the wooded face
of a hill, clothed in dark lines of trimmed yews, which rose abruptly,
about a hundred yards from the house and overshadowed the whole library
wing. Between the window and the hill, however, was a small old English
garden, closely hedged round with yew hedges, and blazing now with every
flower that an English August knows--with sunflowers, tiger lilies, and
dahlias, white and red. The window was low, so that the flowers seemed
to be actually in the room, challenging the pale tints of the books, the
tawny browns and blues of the Persian carpet and the scarlet splendors
of the courtier over the mantelpiece. The room was lit up besides by a
few gleaming casts from the antique, by the 'Diane Chasseresse' of the
Louvre, by the Hermes of Praxiteles smiling with immortal kindness on
the child enthroned upon his arm, and by a Donatello figure of a woman
in marble, its subtle, sweet austerity contrasting with the Greek
frankness and blitheness of its companions.

Langham was penetrated at once by the spell of this strange and
beautiful place. The fastidious instincts which had been half
revolted by the costly accumulations, the over-blown splendors of the
drawing-room, were abundantly satisfied here.

'So it was here,' he said, looking round him, 'that that man wrote the
"Idols of the Market Place"?'

'I imagine so,' said Robert; 'if so, he might well have felt a little
more charity toward the human race in writing it. The race cannot be
said to have treated him badly on the whole. But now look, Langham, look
at these books--the most precious things are here.'

And he turned the ke