n this room seemed to speak of residence and ownership,--of the
idiosyncrasies of a lone single man, it is true, but of a man of one's
own time,--a country gentleman of plain habits but not uncultivated
tastes.

I moved to the window; it opened by a sash upon a large balcony, from
which a wooden stair wound to a little garden, not visible in front of
the house, surrounded by a thick grove of evergreens, through which
one broad vista was cut, and that vista was closed by a view of the
mausoleum.

I stepped out into the garden,--a patch of sward with a fountain in the
centre, and parterres, now more filled with weeds than flowers. At the
left corner was a tall wooden summer-house or pavilion,--its door wide
open. "Oh, that's where Sir Philip used to study many a long summer's
night," said the steward.

"What! in that damp pavilion?"

"It was a pretty place enough then, sir; but it is very old,--they say
as old as the room you have just left."

"Indeed, I must look at it, then."

The walls of this summer-house had once been painted in the arabesques
of the Renaissance period; but the figures were now scarcely traceable.
The woodwork had started in some places, and the sunbeams stole through
the chinks and played on the floor, which was formed from old tiles
quaintly tessellated and in triangular patterns; similar to those I
had observed in the chimneypiece. The room in the pavilion was large,
furnished with old worm-eaten tables and settles. "It was not only here
that Sir Philip studied, but sometimes in the room above," said the
steward.

"How do you get to the room above? Oh, I see; a stair case in the
angle." I ascended the stairs with some caution, for they were crooked
and decayed; and, on entering the room above, comprehended at once why
Sir Philip had favoured it.

The cornice of the ceiling rested on pilasters, within which the
compartments were formed into open unglazed arches, surrounded by a
railed balcony. Through these arches, on three sides of the room, the
eye commanded a magnificent extent of prospect. On the fourth side the
view was bounded by the mausoleum. In this room was a large telescope;
and on stepping into the balcony, I saw that a winding stair mounted
thence to a platform on the top of the pavilion,--perhaps once used as
an observatory by Forman himself.

"The gentleman who was here to-day was very much pleased with this
look-out, sir," said the housekeeper. "Who would not be? I suppo