a and salted
toast, he explains his last acquirements in minerals or missals, eager
that you should see the interest of them; or displays the last studies
of Mr. Rooke or Mr. Fairfax Murray, copies from Carpaccio or bits of
Gothic architecture.

Then, sitting in the chair in which he preached his baby-sermon, he
reads aloud a few chapters of Scott or Miss Edgeworth, or, with
judicious omissions, one of the older novelists; or translates, with
admirable facility, a scene of Scribe or George Sand. When his next
work comes out you will recognise this evening's reading in his
allusions and quotations, perhaps even in the subjects of his writing,
for at this time he is busy on the articles of "Fiction, Fair and Foul."

After the reading, music; a bit of his own composition, "Old Aegina's
Rock," or "Cockle-hat and Staff"; his cousin's Scotch ballads or Christy
Minstrel songs; and if you can sing a new ditty, fresh from London, now
is your chance. You are surprised to see the Prophet clapping his hands
to "Camptown Races," or the "Hundred Pipers"--chorus given with the
whole strength of the company; but you are in a house of strange
meetings.

By about half-past ten his day is over; a busy day, that has left him
tired out. You will not easily forget the way he lit his candle--no
lamps allowed, and no gas--and gave a last look lovingly at a pet
picture or two, slanting his candlestick and shading the light with his
hand, before he went slowly upstairs to his own little room, literally
lined with the Turner drawings you have read about in "Modern Painters."

You may be waked by a knock at the door, and "Are you looking out?" And
pulling up the blind, there is one of our Coniston mornings, with the
whole range of mountains in one quiet glow above the cool mist of the
valley and lake. Going down at length on a voyage of exploration, and
turning in perhaps at the first door, you intrude upon "the Professor"
at work in his study, half sitting, half kneeling at his round table in
the bay window, with the early cup of coffee, and the cat in his crimson
arm-chair. There he has been working since dawn, perhaps, or on dark
mornings by candlelight. And he does not seem to mind the interruption;
after a welcome he asks you to look round while he finishes his
paragraph, and writes away composedly.

A long, low room, evidently two old cottage-rooms thrown into one;
papered with a pattern specially copied from Marco Marziale's
"Circumci