wire completed the
furniture of this unequaled apartment.

The hangings of the walls were a freak at once of genius and lavishness.
They consisted of the bills of the Valley Bank, extravagantly lapped,
and of untold denomination. But the ceiling--how shall I describe it?
Did you, indeed, look up inimitably into a Hesperian sky, or was this
firmament the creation of the painter's art? Nothing flecked the
profound, unsearchable, impassive blue. There brooded the primeval
heavens, undimmed by earthly vapors, unfathomed by earthly instruments;
forever indescribable by earthly tongues.

Two hundred years before, a Pont-Noir of the Roseton branch accumulated
immense wealth from a diamond mine in East Haddam, Connecticut. He was a
man of deep and ardent imagination, and uncomprehended by the simple
villagers, who irreverently styled him the 'mad Roseton.' He died, and
left a singular will. It provided that his estates, money, and jewels,
should be realized and invested on interest for the space of two hundred
years, by a committee of trustees, consisting of the governors of the
six New England States, to be assisted by the fiscal board of
Mississippi, whenever such a State should be organized. At the
expiration of that time, the avails were to be paid to Roseton, of
Pont-Noir, provided but one of that name should exist; if more were
living, the estate was to remain in abeyance until such a condition
should be reached. Not undiscerningly had he foreseen the probability
that his will would be disputed, and a short time before his death he
caused a formal attestation of his sanity to be made by the entire body
of clergymen comprising the Middlesex Conference. His mode of proof was
simple, consisting only of an original manuscript, refuting the Arminian
heresy; but it sufficed, and the will was obeyed. Not unwisely, also,
had he calculated upon the energies of population; for, during one
hundred and fifty years, the Pont-Noirs spread over both continents.
Then they paused, and but two of the race--chosen by lot--were allowed
to marry. At the expiration of twenty-five years, a single male of the
race, also chosen by lot, married, and became the father of the present
Roseton. On the day that Roseton was twenty-four years old, his father
summoned him to his apartment. 'To-morrow,' said he, 'the mystical two
hundred years expire, and an estate of inconceivable magnitude will vest
in the single Roseton--if there be but one. My son, m