arge room on the ground-floor that he had not visited.

It was double the size of the library, a parlor hung in striped yellow
silk vaguely and tenderly faded, with a tall plate mirror set over a
marble-topped console at either side. In one corner stood a grand piano
of Circassian walnut with keys of tinted mother-of-pearl and a slender
music-rack inlaid with morning-glories in the same material. From the
center of the ceiling, above an oval table, depended a great chandelier
hung with glass prisms. He drew his handkerchief across the table;
beneath the disfiguring dust it showed a highly polished surface inlaid
with different colored woods, in an intricate Italian-like landscape.
The legs of the consoles were bowed, delicately carved, and of
gold-leaf. The chairs and sofas were covered with dusty slip-covers of
muslin. He lifted one of these. The tarnished gold furniture was Louis
XV, the upholstery of yellow brocade with a pattern of pink roses. Two
Japanese hawthorn vases sat on teak-wood stands and a corner held a
glass cabinet containing a collection of small ivories and faience.

His appreciative eye kindled. "What a room!" he muttered. "Not a jarring
note anywhere! That's an old Crowe and Christopher piano. I'll get
plenty of music out of that! You don't see such chandeliers outside of
palaces any more except in the old French chateaus. It holds a hundred
candles if it holds one! I never knew before all there was in that
phrase 'the candle-lighted fifties.' I can imagine what it looked like,
with the men in white stocks and flowered waistcoats and the women in
their crinolines and red-heeled slippers, bowing to the minuet under
that candle-light! I'll bet the girls bred in this neighborhood won't
take much to the turkey-trot and the bunny-hug!"

He went thoughtfully back to the great hall, where sat the big chest
on which lay the volume of _Lucile_. He pushed down the antique
wrought-iron hasp and threw up the lid. It was filled to the brim
with textures: heavy portieres of rose-damask, table-covers of
faded soft-toned tapestry, window-hangings of dull green--all with
tobacco-leaves laid between the folds and sifted thickly over with the
sparkling white powder. At the bottom, rolled in tarry-smelling paper,
he found a half-dozen thin, Persian prayer-rugs.

"Phew!" he whistled. "I certainly ought to be grateful to that law firm
that 'inspected' the place. Think of the things lying here all these
years! And that