g--"

"Thinking!" quoth Darrell, with his mechanical irony; "I am sorry for
you. Try not to do so again."

FAIRTHORN.--"Your poor dear father--"

DARRELL (wincing, startled, and expectant of a prickle).--"Eh? my
father--"

FAIRTHORN.--"Was a great antiquary. How it would have pleased him could
he have left a fine collection of antiquities as an heirloom to the
nation!--his name thus preserved for ages, and connected with the
studies of his life. There are the Elgin Marbles. The parson was talking
to me yesterday of a new Vernon Gallery; why not in the British Museum
an everlasting Darrell room? Plenty to stock it mouldering yonder in the
chambers which you will never finish."

"My dear Dick," Said Darrell, starting up, "give me your hand. What a
brilliant thought! I could do nothing else to preserve my dear father's
name. Eureka! You are right. Set the carpenters at work to-morrow.
Remove the boards; open the chambers; we will inspect their stores, and
select what would worthily furnish 'A Darrell Room.' Perish Guy Darrell
the lawyer! Philip Darrell the antiquary at least shall live!"

It is marvellous with what charm Fairthorn's lucky idea seized upon
Darrell's mind. The whole of the next day he spent in the forlorn
skeleton of the unfinished mansion slowly decaying beside his small and
homely dwelling. The pictures, many of which were the rarest originals
in early Flemish and Italian art, were dusted with tender care, and hung
from hasty nails upon the bare ghastly walls. Delicate ivory carvings,
wrought by the matchless hand of Cellini-early Florentine bronzes,
priceless specimens of Raffaele ware and Venetian glass--the precious
trifles, in short, which the collector of mediaeval curiosities amasses
for his heirs to disperse amongst the palaces of kings and the cabinets
of nations--were dragged again to unfamiliar light. The invaded
sepulchral building seemed a very Pompeii of the _Cinque Cento_.
To examine, arrange, methodise, select for national purposes, such
miscellaneous treasures would be the work of weeks. For easier access,
Darrell caused a slight hasty passage to be thrown over the gap between
the two edifices. It ran from the room nicked into the gables of the old
house, which, originally fitted up for scientific studies, now became
his habitual apartment, into the largest of the uncompleted chambers
which had been designed for the grand reception-gallery of the new
building. Into the pompous galler