cal temples.] The paintings of the saloon
came from abroad, and had some of them much merit. To see the best of
them, however, you must be admitted into the very PENETRALIA of the
temple, and allowed to draw the tapestry at the upper end of the saloon,
and enter Mrs. Martha's own special dressing-room. This was a charming
apartment, of which it would be difficult to describe the form, it had
so many recesses which were filled up with shelves of ebony and cabinets
of japan and ormolu--some for holding books, of which Mrs. Martha had an
admirable collection, some for a display of ornamental china, others for
shells and similar curiosities. In a little niche, half screened by a
curtain of crimson silk, was disposed a suit of tilting armour of bright
steel inlaid with silver, which had been worn on some memorable occasion
by Sir Bernard Bethune, already mentioned; while over the canopy of the
niche hung the broadsword with which her father had attempted to change
the fortunes of Britain in 1715, and the spontoon which her elder
brother bore when he was leading on a company of the Black Watch at
Fontenoy. [The well-known original designation of the gallant 42nd
Regiment. Being the first corps raised for the royal service in the
Highlands, and allowed to retain their national garb, they were thus
named from the contrast which their dark tartans furnished to the
scarlet and white of the other regiments.]

There were some Italian and Flemish pictures of admitted authenticity, a
few genuine bronzes, and other objects of curiosity, which her brothers
or herself had picked up while abroad. In short, it was a place where
the idle were tempted to become studious, the studious to grow idle
where the grave might find matter to make them gay, and the gay subjects
for gravity.

That it might maintain some title to its name, I must not forget to
say that the lady's dressing-room exhibited a superb mirror, framed in
silver filigree work; a beautiful toilette, the cover of which was of
Flanders lace; and a set of boxes corresponding in materials and work to
the frame of the mirror.

This dressing apparatus, however, was mere matter of parade. Mrs. Martha
Bethune Baliol always went through the actual duties of the toilette in
an inner apartment, which corresponded with her sleeping-room by a
small detached staircase. There were, I believe, more than one of those
TURNPIKE STAIRS, as they were called, about the house, by which the
public r