live in!"

Mr. Rolfe was engaged with some one, and she was kept waiting; this was
quite new to her, and discouraged her, already intimidated by the
novelty of the situation.

She tried to encourage herself by saying it was for her husband she did
this unusual thing; but she felt very miserable and inclined to cry.

At last a bell rang; the maid came in and invited Lady Bassett to
follow her. She opened the glass folding-doors, and took them into a
small conservatory, walled like a grotto, with ferns sprouting out of
rocky fissures, and spars sparkling, water dripping. Then she opened
two more glass folding-doors, and ushered them into an empty room, the
like of which Lady Bassett had never seen; it was large in itself, and
multiplied tenfold by great mirrors from floor to ceiling, with no
frames but a narrow oak beading; opposite her, on entering, was a
bay-window all plate-glass, the central panes of which opened, like
doors, upon a pretty little garden that glowed with color, and was
backed by fine trees belonging to the nation; for this garden ran up to
the wall of Hyde Park.

The numerous and large mirrors all down to the ground laid hold of the
garden and the flowers, and by double and treble reflection filled the
room with delightful nooks of verdure and color.

To confuse the eye still more, a quantity of young India-rubber trees,
with glossy leaves, were placed before the large central mirror. The
carpet was a warm velvet-pile, the walls were distempered, a French
gray, not cold, but with a tint of mauve that gave a warm and cheering
bloom; this soothing color gave great effect to the one or two
masterpieces of painting that hung on the walls and to the gilt frames;
the furniture, oak and marqueterie highly polished; the curtains,
scarlet merino, through which the sun shone, and, being a London sun,
diffused a mild rosy tint favorable to female faces. Not a sound of
London could be heard.

So far the room was romantic; but there was a prosaic corner to shock
those who fancy that fiction is the spontaneous overflow of a poetic
fountain fed by nature only; between the fireplace and the window, and
within a foot or two of the wall, stood a gigantic writing-table, with
the signs of hard labor on it, and of severe system. Three plated
buckets, each containing three pints, full of letters to be answered,
other letters to be pasted into a classified guard-book, loose notes to
be pasted into various books and c