r seen. On the day
after his arrival, his host took him all over the house, at his earnest
request, and told him its story; and as they passed from room to room,
again and again Anthony found himself involuntarily exclaiming at the new
and extraordinary beauties of architecture and furniture that revealed
themselves.

The house itself had been all built in the present reign, before its
owner had got into trouble; and had been fitted throughout on the most
lavish scale, with furniture of German as well as of English manufacture.
Mr. Buxton was a collector of pictures and other objects of art; and his
house contained some of the very finest specimens of painting, bronzes,
enamels, plate and woodwork procurable from the Continent.

The house was divided into two sections; the chief living rooms were in a
long suite looking to the south on to the gardens, with a corridor on the
north side running the whole length of the house on the ground-floor,
from which a staircase rose to a similar corridor or gallery on the first
floor. The second section of the house was a block of some half-dozen
smallish rooms, with a private staircase of their own, and a private
entrance and little walled garden as well in front. The house was mostly
panelled throughout, and here and there hung pieces of magnificent
tapestry and cloth of arras. All was kept, too, with a care that was
unusual in those days--the finest woodwork was brought to a high polish,
as well as all the brass utensils and steel fire-plates and dogs and such
things. No two rooms were alike; each possessed some marked
characteristic of its own--one bedroom, for example, was distinguished by
its fourpost bed with its paintings on the canopy and head--another, by
its little two-light high window with Adam and Eve in stained glass;
another with a little square-window containing a crucifix, which was
generally concealed by a sliding panel; another by two secret cupboards
over the fire-place, and its recess fitted as an oratory; another by a
magnificent piece of tapestry representing Saint Clara and Saint Thomas
of Aquin, each holding a monstrance, with a third great monstrance in the
centre, supported by angels.

Downstairs the rooms were on the same scale of magnificence. The
drawing-room had an exquisite wooden ceiling with great pendants
elaborately carved; the dining-room was distinguished by its glass,
containing a collection of coats-of-arms of many of Mr. Buxton's friends