tried to designate it 'the music-room,'
but the older name persisted) had all the conglomeration of contents
which is at once the charm and the drawback of English country homes.
Furniture of various periods indulged in mute and elegant warfare.
Scattered in graceful disorder about the room were relics procured by
an ancestor who had been to Japan; there was a Spanish bowl gathered by
Lord Dudley Durwent; there was an Italian tapestry, an Indian tomahawk,
a Chinese sword that had beheaded real Chinamen, all procured by Lord
Dingwall Durwent in the eighteenth century. There was a massive Louis
Seize table and a frail Louis Quinze chair; a slice of Chippendale
here, and a bit of Sheraton there; portraits of ancestors who fought at
Quebec, Waterloo, Sebastopol, and a very military-looking gentleman on
a terrific horse, who had done all his fighting in Pall Mall clubs.
There were 'oils' purchased by Durwents who liked to patronise the
arts, and 'waters' by Durwents who didn't like oils.

And year after year, generation after generation, the ancient
drawing-room received its additional impedimenta without so much as a
creak of protest.

In the impressive seclusion of Roselawn, therefore, the house-party
began to gather. They were an admirably assorted group of people who
never objected to being bored, providing it was accomplished in an
atmosphere of good breeding. The soothing balm of the Roselawn meadows
offered its potency of healing to fatigued minds or weary bodies, but,
like the fragrance of the unseen flower, it was wasted on the desert
air. Lady Durwent's guests had not been using either their brains or
their bodies to a point where honest fatigue would seek healing in the
perfume of clover. If a hundred gamins from Whitechapel's crowded
misery had been brought from London and let loose in summer's
sweet-scented prodigality, the incense of fields and flowers might have
brought sparkle to young eyes dull with the wretchedness of poverty,
and colour to pale, unnourished cheeks. But Lord and Lady Durwent,
denying themselves the luxury of such a treat, asked people who lived
in the country to come and enjoy the country.

The pleasure of their guests was about as keen as would be that of a
party of bricklayers invited by a fellow-labourer to spend a Saturday
with him laying bricks.

IV.

To the insatiable curiosity of Austin Selwyn the party presented an
infinite chance for study, as well as an unlooked-for