above my head, but
hung about me in a pale blue cloud, which I had to dissipate with
languid waves of my hand. My shirt was open at the throat, and my chest
heaved laboriously in the effort to catch some breaths of fresher air.
The noises of the city seemed to be wrapped in slumber, and the
shrilling of the mosquitos was the only sound that broke the stillness.

As I lay with my feet elevated on the back of a chair, wrapped in that
peculiar frame of mind in which thought assumes a species of lifeless
motion, the strange fancy seized me of making a languid inventory of the
principal articles of furniture in my room. It was a task well suited to
the mood in which I found myself. Their forms were duskily defined in
the dim twilight that floated shadowily through the chamber; it was no
labour to note and particularize each, and from the place where I sat I
could command a view of all my possessions without even turning my head.

There was, _imprimis_, that ghostly lithograph by Calame. It was a mere
black spot on the white wall, but my inner vision scrutinized every
detail of the picture. A wild, desolate, midnight heath, with a spectral
oak-tree in the centre of the foreground. The wind blows fiercely, and
the jagged branches, clothed scantily with ill-grown leaves, are swept
to the left continually by its giant force.

A formless wrack of clouds streams across the awful sky, and the rain
sweeps almost parallel with the horizon. Beyond, the heath stretches off
into endless blackness, in the extreme of which either fancy or art has
conjured up some undefinable shapes that seem riding into space. At the
base of the huge oak stands a shrouded figure. His mantle is wound by
the blast in tight folds around his form, and the long cock's feather in
his hat is blown upright, till it seems as if it stood on end with fear.
His features are not visible, for he has grasped his cloak with both
hands, and drawn it from either side across his face. The picture is
seemingly objectless. It tells no tale, but there is a weird power about
it that haunts one, and it was for that I bought it.

Next to the picture comes the round blot that hangs below it, which I
know to be a smoking-cap. It has my coat of arms embroidered on the
front, and for that reason I never wear it; though, when properly
arranged on my head, with its long blue silken tassel hanging down by my
cheek, I believe it becomes me well. I remember the time when it was in
the