volubly all the time,
bustling nervously through the rooms, along which I followed her
guidance with a hushed footstep. The principal apartments were on the
ground-floor, or rather, a floor raised some ten or fifteen feet above
the ground; they had not been modernized since the date in which they
were built. Hangings of faded silk; tables of rare marble, and mouldered
gilding; comfortless chairs at drill against the walls; pictures, of
which connoisseurs alone could estimate the value, darkened by dust or
blistered by sun and damp, made a general character of discomfort. On
not one room, on not one nook, still lingered some old smile of home.

Meanwhile, I gathered from the housekeeper's rambling answers to
questions put to her by the steward, as I moved on, glancing at the
pictures, that Margrave's visit that day was not his first. He had been
to the house twice before,--his ostensible excuse that he was an amateur
in pictures (though, as I had before observed, for that department of
art he had no taste); but each time he had talked much of Sir Philip. He
said that though not personally known to him, he had resided in the same
towns abroad, and had friends equally intimate with Sir Philip; but when
the steward inquired if the visitor had given any information as to
the absentee, it became very clear that Margrave had been rather asking
questions than volunteering intelligence.

We had now come to the end of the state apartments, the last of which
was a library. "And," said the old woman, "I don't wonder the gentleman
knew Sir Philip, for he seemed a scholar, and looked very hard over the
books, especially those old ones by the fireplace, which Sir Philip,
Heaven bless him, was always poring into."

Mechanically I turned to the shelves by the fireplace, and examined the
volumes ranged in that department. I found they contained the works
of those writers whom we may class together under the title of
mystics,--Iamblichus and Plotinus; Swedenborg and Behmen; Sandivogius,
Van Helmont, Paracelsus, Cardan. Works, too, were there, by writers less
renowned, on astrology, geomancy, chiromancy, etc. I began to understand
among what class of authors Margrave had picked up the strange notions
with which he was apt to interpolate the doctrines of practical
philosophy.

"I suppose this library was Sir Philip's usual sitting-room?" said I.

"No, sir; he seldom sat here. This was his study;" and the old woman
opened a small door,