He retired and I remained; and now I resolved to have another good look. One side of the room I had not yet examined. Next the door I found a trio or quartet of three-legged stools, fixed one into the other, and nearest them a harpsichord,--a very harpsichord with crooked legs. It was covered with baize, and a pile of music-books reposed upon the baize, besides some antique instrument-cases. Other and larger cases were on the floor beneath the harpsichord; there hung a talisman or two of glittering brass upon the wall, by floating ribbons of red. Then I fastened myself upon the pictures, and those strange wreaths of withered leaves that waved between them, and whose searest hues befitted well their vicinage. As I stood beneath those pictures, those dead-brown garlands rustled as if my light breath had been the autumn wind. I was stricken at once with melancholy and romance, but I understood not clearly the precise charm of those relics, or my melancholy would have lost itself in romance alone. There was one portrait of Bach. I knew it again, though it was a worthier hint of him than Davy's; and underneath that portrait was something of the same kind, which vividly fascinated me by its subject. It was a very young head, almost that of an infant, lying, rather than bending, over an oblong book, such in shape as those represented in pictures of literary cherubs. The face was more than half forehead, which the clustering locks could not conceal, though they strove to shadow; and in revenge, the hair swept back and tumbled sideways, curling into the very swell of the tender shoulder. The countenance was of sun-bright witchery, lustrous as an elf of summer laughing out of a full-blown rose. Tiny hands were doubled round the book, and the lips wore themselves a smile that seemed to stir and dimple, and to flutter those floating ringlets. It was strange I was, though so unutterably drawn to it, in nothing reminded of any child or man I had ever seen, but merely thought it an ideal of the infant music, if music could personate infancy. After a long, long gaze I looked away, expressly to have the delight of returning to it; and then I saw the stove and approved of it, instead of missing, as I was told at home I should miss, the hearthrug and roseate fire-shine. Indeed, the stove was much more in keeping here, according to my outlandish taste.