so completely upset that I started with a
cry of alarm. I felt a momentary impulse to open the door and run out.
The idea of trusting myself alone with the man who had painted those
frightful pictures actually terrified me; I was obliged to sit down on
one of the hall chairs. Some minutes passed before my mind recovered
its balance, and I began to feel like my own ordinary self again. The
whistle sounded impatiently for the second time. I rose and ascended the
broad flight of stairs which led to the first story. To draw back at the
point which I had now reached would have utterly degraded me in my own
estimation. Still, my heart did certainly beat faster than usual as I
approached the door of the circular anteroom; and I honestly acknowledge
that I saw my own imprudence, just then, in a singularly vivid light.

There was a glass over the mantel-piece in the anteroom. I lingered for
a moment (nervous as I was) to see how I looked in the glass.

The hanging tapestry over the inner door had been left partially drawn
aside. Softly as I moved, the dog's ears of Miserrimus Dexter caught the
sound of my dress on the floor. The fine tenor voice, which I had last
heard singing, called to me softly.

"Is that Mrs. Valeria? Please don't wait there. Come in!"

I entered the inner room.

The wheeled chair advanced to meet me, so slowly and so softly that I
hardly knew it again. Miserrimus Dexter languidly held out his hand. His
head inclined pensively to one side; his large blue eyes looked at
me piteously. Not a vestige seemed to be left of the raging, shouting
creature of my first visit, who was Napoleon at one moment, and
Shakespeare at another. Mr. Dexter of the morning was a mild,
thoughtful, melancholy man, who only recalled Mr. Dexter of the night by
the inveterate oddity of his dress. His jacket, on this occasion, was
of pink quilted silk. The coverlet which hid his deformity matched the
jacket in pale sea-green satin; and, to complete these strange vagaries
of costume, his wrists were actually adorned with massive bracelets of
gold, formed on the severely simple models which have descended to us
from ancient times.

"How good of you to cheer and charm me by coming here!" he said, in his
most mournful and most musical tones. "I have dressed, expressly to
receive you, in the prettiest clothes I have. Don't be surprised. Except
in this ignoble and material nineteenth century, men have always worn
precious stuffs and bea