altogether this is a very religious atmosphere.
Pray take off your cloak; the room is warm."

Nino looked about him. He had expected to be ushered into some
princely dwelling, for he had judged his interlocutor to be some rich
and eccentric noble, unless he were an erratic scamp. He was somewhat
taken aback by the spectacle that met his eyes. The furniture was
scant, and all in the style of the last century. The dust lay half an
inch thick on the old gilded ornaments and chandeliers. A great
pier-glass was cracked from corner to corner, and the metallic backing
seemed to be scaling off behind. There were two or three open valises
on the marble floor, which latter, however, seemed to have been lately
swept. A square table was in the centre, also free from dust, and a
few high-backed leathern chairs, studded with brass nails, were ranged
about it. On the table stood one of the lamps, and the other was
placed on a marble column in a corner, that once must have supported a
bust, or something of the kind. Old curtains, moth-eaten and ragged
with age, but of a rich material, covered the windows. Nino glanced at
the open trunks on the floor, and saw that they contained a quantity
of wearing apparel and the like. He guessed that his acquaintance had
lately arrived.

"I do not often inhabit this den," said the old gentleman, who had
divested himself of his furs, and now showed his thin figure arrayed
in the extreme of full dress. A couple of decorations hung at his
button-hole. "I seldom come here, and on my return, the other day, I
found that the man I had left in charge was dead, with, all his
family, and the place has gone to ruin. That is always my luck," he
added, with a little laugh.

"I should think he must have been dead some time," said Nino, looking
about him. "There is a great deal of dust here."

"Yes, as you say, it is some years," returned his acquaintance, still
laughing. He seemed a merry old soul, fifty years younger than his
looks. He produced from a case a bottle of wine and two silver cups,
and placed them on the table.

"But where is your friend, the violinist?" inquired Nino, who was
beginning to be impatient; for except that the place was dusty and
old, there was nothing about it sufficiently interesting to take his
thoughts from the subject nearest his heart.

"I will introduce him to you," said the other, going to one of the
valises and taking out a violin case, which he laid on the table and
pr