“The drawing-room, of course.” Sophie swam up and down it. “That mantelpiece--Orpheus and Eurydice--is the best of them all. Isn't it marvellous? Why, the room seems furnished with nothing in it! How's that, George?” “It's the proportions. I've noticed it.” “I saw a Heppelwhite couch once”--Sophie laid her finger to her flushed cheek and considered. “With two of them--one on each side--you wouldn't need anything else. Except--there must be one perfect mirror over that mantelpiece.” “Look at that view. It's a framed Constable,” her husband cried. “No; it's a Morland--a parody of a Morland. But about that couch, George. Don't you think Empire might be better than Heppelwhite? Dull gold against that pale green? It's a pity they don't make spinets nowadays.” “I believe you can get them. Look at that oak wood behind the pines.” “'While you sat and played toccatas stately, at the clavichord,'” Sophie hummed, and, head on one side, nodded to where the perfect mirror should hang. Then they found bedrooms with dressing-rooms and powdering-closets, and steps leading up and down--boxes of rooms, round, square, and octagonal, with enriched ceilings and chased door-locks. “Now about servants. Oh!” She had darted up the last stairs to the chequered darkness of the top floor, where loose tiles lay among broken laths, and the walls were scrawled with names, sentiments, and hop records. “They've been keeping pigeons here,” she cried. “And you could drive a buggy through the roof anywhere,” said George. “That's what _I_ say,” the old man cried below them on the stairs. “Not a dry place for my pigeons at all.” “But why was it allowed to get like this?” said Sophie. “Tis with housen as teeth,” he replied. “Let 'em go too far, and there's nothing to be done. Time was they was minded to sell her, but none would buy. She was too far away along from any place. Time was they'd ha' lived here theyselves, but they took and died.” “Here?” Sophie moved beneath the light of a hole in the roof. “Nah--none dies here excep' falling off ricks and such. In London they died.” He plucked a lock of wool from his blue smock. “They was no staple--neither the Elphicks nor the Moones. Shart and brittle all of 'em. Dead they be seventeen year, for I've been here caretakin' twenty-five.” “Who does all the wool belong to downstairs?” George asked. “To the estate. I'll show you the back parts if ye like. You're from America, ain't ye? I've had a son there once myself.” They followed him down the main stairway. He paused at the turn and swept one hand toward the wall. “Plenty room here for your coffin to come down. Seven foot and three men at each end wouldn't brish the paint. If I die in my bed they'll 'ave to up-end me like a milk-can. 'Tis all luck, dye see?”