Such a pleasant room, this! Not a bit of the wall to be seen for the dark oak bookshelves, which, crammed with books, extended from floor to ceiling on every side. A capital collection of books, in sober calf bindings (Sir Marmaduke once said that brilliant bindings and glazed book-cases always reminded him of a man with his hair parted down the middle, and could not understand what Barbara meant by asking hi Mrs. Nickleby had been a Wentworth): theology, politics, books of reference, poetry, drama, and history, all regularly ranged and properly catalogued. Fiction had a very moderate compartment allotted to it; but the round table in the middle of the room, and the ottoman at the far end, were liberally strewn with volumes bearing the omnipresent yellow ticket of Mudie. Immediately in front of the big bow-window, which was shaded by a sun-blind, and through which you gazed over a lovely expanse of down, stood a huge writing-table, on which was an inkstand that might have held half a pint, a large blotting-pad, an oxydised-silver owl with ruby eyes erect on a paperweight, and a bundle of quill pens, half split up, and all very much bitten at the tops; for Sir Marmaduke, who was the principle occupant of the cane writing-chair, was apt to get very energetic in his correspondence. Here, too, the old gentleman indulged in the one literary occupation of his life--certain translations of Horace, which he altered and polished year after year, intending some time or other to show them to an old college friend, and then have a gorgeous edition printed on toned paper for private circulation. Here, in a huge iron safe, were kept big ledgers, and account-books of rents, rates, and expenditure on the estates which gave three days' solemn investigation every quarter to Sir Marmaduke and Major Stone; whereat there was much head-rubbing, many appealing looks to the ceiling, and much secret checking of fingers under the table, and reference to a ready-reckoner on the part of both gentlemen. And here in a secret draw of the writing-table, lay a little packet, which the old man would take out occasionally, would open, and sit gazing for half an hour together at the contents. They were not much,--a faded blue ribbon, once worn, with a little locket attached to it, round the throat of his old love at the Bath Assemblies, where he first met her; a curl of hair, cut from her head after death; and an ivory miniature, by Stump, of a dark girl, with big brown eyes, and her hair banded tight to her forehead, and gathered into a large bow at the top of the head. After an inspection of this drawer the old gentleman would walk to the looking-glass, and glaring at his own reflection therein, would shake his head in a very solemn manner; he would be very mild and quiet, and, as Gumble noticed, would drink an extra bottle of claret during the evening.