essed in the arrangement of a room, as well as in the composition of
a picture. It is this leading idea which corresponds to what painters
call the ground tone, or harmonizing tint, of a picture. The presence of
this often renders a very simple room extremely fascinating, and the
absence of it makes the most splendid combinations of furniture
powerless to please.

The walls were covered with green damask, laid on flat, and confined in
its place by narrow gilt bands, which bordered it around the margin. The
chairs, ottomans, and sofas were of white woodwork, varnished and
gilded, covered with the same.

The carpet was of a green ground, bedropped with a small yellow leaf;
and in each window a circular, standing basket contained a whole bank of
primroses, growing as if in their native soil, their pale yellow
blossoms and green leaves harmonizing admirably with the general tone of
coloring.

Through the fall of the lace curtains I could see out into the beautiful
grounds, whose clumps of blossoming white lilacs, and velvet grass,
seemed so in harmony with the green interior of the room, that one would
think they had been arranged as a continuation of the idea.

One of the first individual objects which attracted my attention was,
over the mantel-piece, a large, splendid picture by Landseer, which I
have often seen engraved. It represents the two eldest children of the
Duchess of Sutherland, the Marquis of Stafford, and Lady Blantyre, at
that time Lady Levison Gower, in their childhood. She is represented as
feeding a fawn; a little poodle dog is holding up a rose to her; and her
brother is lying on the ground, playing with an old staghound.

I had been familiar with Landseer's engravings, but this was the first
of his paintings I had ever seen, and I was struck with the rich and
harmonious quality of the coloring. There was also a full-length marble
statue of the Marquis of Stafford, taken, I should think, at about
seventeen years of age, in full Highland costume.

When the duchess appeared, I thought she looked handsomer by daylight
than in the evening. She was dressed in white muslin, with a drab velvet
basque slashed with satin of the same color. Her hair was confined by a
gold and diamond net on the back part of her head.

She received us with the same warm and simple kindness which she had
shown before. We were presented to the Duke of Sutherland. He is a tall,
slender man, with rather a thin face, light brown