works of art.
Buy 'em, I say--lock 'em up--and forget 'em for twenty years!"

With much labour, they had at last ranged the most important pieces on
some trestle tables and in the cupboards of the room. A number of smaller
boxes and packages still remained to be looked through. Faversham, by
Melrose's directions, had written to a London firm of dealers in antique
silver, directing them to send down two of their best men to clean, mend,
and catalogue. Proper glazed cupboards, baize-lined, were to be put up
along each side of the room; the room itself was to be repaired,
whitened, and painted. Faversham already foresaw the gleaming splendour
of the show, when all should be done, and these marvels of a most lovely
art--these silver nymphs and fauns, these dainty sea-horses and dolphins,
these temples and shrines, now holding a Hercules, now a St. Sebastian,
these arabesques, garlands, festoons, running in a riot of beauty over
the surface of cup and salver--had been restored to daylight and men's
sight, after the burial of a generation.

But the value of what the house contained! In these days of huge prices
and hungry buyers, it must be simply enormous.

Faversham often found himself speculating eagerly upon it, and always
with the query in the background "For _whom_ is it all piling up?"

As they left the silver room, Melrose had made the grim remark that the
contents of that room alone would make it prudent to let loose an extra
couple of bloodhounds in the park at night. Dixon's frowning countenance
as he followed in their wake showed an answering anxiety. For he had now
been made guardian of the collections; and a raw nephew of his, chosen
apparently for his honesty and his speechlessness, had been put on as
manservant, Mrs. Dixon had two housemaids under her, and a girl in the
kitchen. It was sometimes evident to Faversham that the agitation of
these changes which had come so suddenly upon them, had aged the two old
servants, just as it had tried their master.

Faversham on dismounting was told by Joseph, the new man, that Mr.
Melrose would dine alone, but would be glad to see Mr. Faversham in the
library after dinner.

Faversham made a quick and sparing meal in his own room, and then
adjourning to his newly furnished office ran eagerly through the various
papers and proposals which he had to lay before his employer.

As he did so, he was more conscious than ever before of the enormity
of Melrose's whole care