The tapestry was an exquisite specimen of that patient art. Its subject was the story of Arion. The friendly dolphin, and the blue summer sea, the Greek sailors, Periander's white-walled palace, lived upon the work. Triangular cabinets of carved ebony adorned the corners of the room, and were richly furnished with the Bellingham bric-a-brac, the only dower Sir Nugent had been able to give his daughter. The chairs and sofas, from which Mrs. Darvis lifted a corner of the holland covering for the visitor's gratification, were of the same dark wood, upholstered with richest olive-green damask, of mediæval diaper pattern. Window-curtains of the same sombre hue harmonized admirably with the brighter colours of the tapestry. The floor was darkest oak, only covered in the centre with a Persian carpet. The boudoir, which opened out of the drawing-room, was furnished in exactly the same style, only here the tapestried walls told the story of Hero and Leander. 'I believe it was all Mrs. Penwyn's taste,' said the housekeeper, when Maurice had admired everything. '"Her rooms upstairs are a picture—nothing of character with the house," the head upholsterer said. "There's so few ladies have got any notion of character," he says. "They'll furnish an old manor-house with flimsy white and gold of the Lewis Quince style, only fit for a drawing-room in the Shamps Eliza; and if you ask them why, they'll say because it's fashionable, and they like it. Mrs. Penwyn is an artist," says the upholsterer's foreman.' Maurice did not hurry his inspection, finding the housekeeper communicative, and the place full of interest. He heard a great deal about the old Squire, Nicholas Penwyn, who had reigned for forty years, and for whom his dependants had evidently felt a curious mixture of fear, respect, and affection. 'He was a just man,' said Mrs. Darvis, 'but stern; and it was but rarely he forgave any one that once offended him. It took a good deal to offend him, you know, sir; but when he did take offence, the wound rankled deep. I've heard our old doctor say the Squire had bad flesh for healing. He never got on very well with his eldest son, Mr. George, though he was the handsomest of the three brothers, and the best of them too, to my mind.' 'What made them disagree?' asked Maurice. They had made the round of the house by this time, and the traveller had seated himself comfortably on a broad window-seat in the entrance hall, a window through which the setting sun shone bright and warm. Mrs. Darvis sat on a carved oak bench by the fireplace, resting after her unwonted exertions. Elspeth stood at a respectful distance, her arms folded demurely in her little red shawl, listening to the housekeeper's discourse.