s, splendid textures, the product of ancient handiwork and modern
looms, added a certain dignity to the more airy creations of the artists.
Many of the rooms were named from the nations whose styles of decoration
and furnishing were imitated in them, but others had the simple
designation of the gold room, the silver room, the lapis-lazuli room, and
so on. It was not only the show-rooms, the halls, passages, stairways,
and galleries (both of pictures and of curios) that were thus enriched,
but the boudoirs, retiring-rooms, and more private apartments as well.
It was not simply a house of luxury, but of all the comfort that modern
invention can furnish. It was said that the money lavished upon one or
two of the noble apartments would have built a State-house (though not at
Albany), and that the fireplace in the great hall cost as much as an
imitation mediaeval church. These were the things talked about, and yet
the portions of this noble edifice, rich as they were, habitually
occupied by the family had another character--the attractions and
conveniences of what we call a home. Mrs. Mavick used to say that in her
apartments she found refuge in a sublimated domesticity. Mavick's own
quarters--not the study off the library where he received visitors whom
it was necessary to impress--had an executive appearance, and were, in
the necessary appliances, more like the interior bureau of a board of
trade. In fact, the witty brokers who were admitted to its mysteries
called it the bucket-shop.

Mr. Brad's article on "A Prisoned Millionaire" more than equaled Philip's
expectations. No such "story" had appeared in the city press in a long
time. It was what was called, in the language of the period, a work of
art--that is, a sensation, heightened by all the words of color in the
language, applied not only to material things, but to states and
qualities of mind, such as "purple emotions" and "scarlet intrepidity."
It was also exceedingly complimentary. Mavick himself was one of the
powers and pillars of American society, and the girl was an exquisite
exhibition of woodland bloom in the first flush of spring-time. As he
read it over, Philip thought what a fine advertisement it is to every
impecunious noble in Europe.

That morning, before going to his office, Philip strolled up Fifth Avenue
to look at that now doubly, famous mansion. Many others, it appeared,
were moved by the same curiosity. There was already a crowd assembled.
A coup