disgorge.
Above the dusky shaft of the enclosing galleries, where lounging lodgers
and crumpled chambermaids and all the picturesque domesticity of a
rattling tavern must have leaned on their elbows for many a year, I made
out the far-off lurid twinkle of the London constellations. At the foot
of the stairs, enshrined in the glittering niche of her well-appointed
bar, the landlady sat napping like some solemn idol amid votive brass
and plate.

The next morning, not finding the subject of my benevolent curiosity in
the coffee-room, I learned from the waiter that he had ordered breakfast
in bed. Into this asylum I was not yet prepared to pursue him. I spent
the morning in the streets, partly under pressure of business, but
catching all kinds of romantic impressions by the way. To the searching
American eye there is no tint of association with which the great grimy
face of London doesn't flush. As the afternoon approached, however,
I began to yearn for some site more gracefully classic than what
surrounded me, and, thinking over the excursions recommended to the
ingenuous stranger, decided to take the train to Hampton Court. The day
was the more propitious that it yielded just that dim subaqueous light
which sleeps so fondly upon the English landscape.

At the end of an hour I found myself wandering through the apartments of
the great palace. They follow each other in infinite succession, with no
great variety of interest or aspect, but with persistent pomp and a fine
specific effect. They are exactly of their various times. You pass from
painted and panelled bedchambers and closets, anterooms, drawing-rooms,
council-rooms, through king's suite, queen's suite, prince's suite,
until you feel yourself move through the appointed hours and stages
of some rigid monarchical day. On one side are the old monumental
upholsteries, the big cold tarnished beds and canopies, with the
circumference of disapparelled royalty symbolised by a gilded
balustrade, and the great carved and yawning chimney-places where
dukes-in-waiting may have warmed their weary heels; on the other,
in deep recesses, rise the immense windows, the framed and draped
embrasures where the sovereign whispered and favourites smiled, looking
out on terraced gardens and misty park. The brown walls are dimly
illumined by innumerable portraits of courtiers and captains, more
especially with various members of the Batavian entourage of William
of Orange, the restorer o