the better half, too, I
should say," she added, turning to Mr. Fortescue.

Denham rose, half meaning to go, and thinking that he had seen all that
there was to see, but Katharine rose at the same moment, and saying,
"Perhaps you would like to see the pictures," led the way across the
drawing-room to a smaller room opening out of it.

The smaller room was something like a chapel in a cathedral, or a
grotto in a cave, for the booming sound of the traffic in the distance
suggested the soft surge of waters, and the oval mirrors, with their
silver surface, were like deep pools trembling beneath starlight. But
the comparison to a religious temple of some kind was the more apt of
the two, for the little room was crowded with relics.

As Katharine touched different spots, lights sprang here and there, and
revealed a square mass of red-and-gold books, and then a long skirt
in blue-and-white paint lustrous behind glass, and then a mahogany
writing-table, with its orderly equipment, and, finally, a picture above
the table, to which special illumination was accorded. When Katharine
had touched these last lights, she stood back, as much as to say,
"There!" Denham found himself looked down upon by the eyes of the great
poet, Richard Alardyce, and suffered a little shock which would have led
him, had he been wearing a hat, to remove it. The eyes looked at him out
of the mellow pinks and yellows of the paint with divine friendliness,
which embraced him, and passed on to contemplate the entire world. The
paint had so faded that very little but the beautiful large eyes were
left, dark in the surrounding dimness.

Katharine waited as though for him to receive a full impression, and
then she said:

"This is his writing-table. He used this pen," and she lifted a quill
pen and laid it down again. The writing-table was splashed with old ink,
and the pen disheveled in service. There lay the gigantic gold-rimmed
spectacles, ready to his hand, and beneath the table was a pair of
large, worn slippers, one of which Katharine picked up, remarking:

"I think my grandfather must have been at least twice as large as any
one is nowadays. This," she went on, as if she knew what she had to say
by heart, "is the original manuscript of the 'Ode to Winter.' The early
poems are far less corrected than the later. Would you like to look at
it?"

While Mr. Denham examined the manuscript, she glanced up at her
grandfather, and, for the thousandth time, f