oth lore and luxury reigned supreme.

The dining room was uniform in size with the parlors and the library.
Its walls and ceiling were frescoed with groups of graceful figures,
which represented the merry sprites of pleasure in carnivals of
feasting, song and dancing. Each figure was a carefully studied type of
beauty; each group a perfect expression of grace and gaiety. Studied
singly or as parts of the entire composition, they were exquisite as
works of art, charming the attention of the beholder with a bewildering
fascination. The floor was one vast mosaic of superbly colored tiles.
The heavy mahogany tables and sideboards were glittering with their
costly equipments of shining silver, sparkling cut glass, and rare,
translucent china. Large oval mirrors in heavy carved frames, duplicated
the lovely adornments of this brilliant room from a dozen points of
vantage. The dazzling effect of this home of the feast, was intensified
by cascades of light from the two unrivaled chandeliers. They supported
a great number of slender bulbs containing the electric lights, which
were arranged in the form of a mass of drooping fern leaves, rising like
a pyramid of soft radiance, into the perfect shape of two superb
fountains. Tiny streams of short prisms, clear, flashing, crystal,
pendant and vibrating, formed the tip of each fern leaf. This skillful
combination seemed to complete the startling illusion of this rare
vision of loveliness, until one could almost hear the musical tinkle of
falling water.

The three halls on the main, second and third floors, were really
galleries of art "par excellence," they were so profusely adorned with
choice collections of photographs, etchings, water colors, paintings and
statuary. On entering the main hall, two very large paintings of
extraordinary significance and rare merit claimed instant admiration.
Companion pictures, each with a canopy and background of crossed
American flags, from whose voluminous folds shone the blazing glory of
color in the matchless beauty of the stars and stripes. In each picture
under these flags, the dominant spirit of the republic breathed in the
noble figures so exquisitely painted; typifying in the one on the right,
the Goddess of Liberty watching over the destiny of the republic. In the
one on the left, Liberty with her torch lighting the world. So perfectly
did the painter's art portray the "Spirit of '76," that a new tide of
patriotic devotion to the republic