“Generally, however,” observed he, as they passed from one dark alcove to another, “the library is of little worth, except to show how much of living truth each generation contributes to the botheration of life, and what a public benefactor a bookworm is, after all. There, now! did you ever happen to see one? Here is one that I have watched at work, some time past, and have not thought it worth while to stop him.” Redclyffe looked at the learned little insect, who was eating a strange sort of circular trench into an old book of scholastic Latin, which probably only he had ever devoured,--at least ever found to his taste. The insect seemed in excellent condition, fat with learning, having doubtless got the essence of the book into himself. But Redclyffe was still more interested in observing in the corner a great spider, which really startled him,--not so much for its own terrible aspect, though that was monstrous, as because he seemed to see in it the very great spider which he had known in his boyhood; that same monster that had been the Doctor’s familiar, and had been said to have had an influence in his death. He looked so startled that Father Angelo observed it. “Do not be frightened,” said he; “though I allow that a brave man may well be afraid of a spider, and that the bravest of the brave need not blush to shudder at this one. There is a great mystery about this spider. No one knows whence he came; nor how long he has been here. The library was very much shut up during the time of the last inheritor of the estate, and had not been thoroughly examined for some years when I opened it, and swept some of the dust away from its old alcoves. I myself was not aware of this monster until the lapse of some weeks, when I was startled at seeing him, one day, as I was reading an old book here. He dangled down from the ceiling, by the cordage of his web, and positively seemed to look into my face.” “He is of the species Condetas,” said Redclyffe,--“a rare spider seldom seen out of the tropic regions.” “You are learned, then, in spiders,” observed the priest, surprised. “I could almost make oath, at least, that I have known this ugly specimen of his race,” observed Redclyffe. “A very dear friend, now deceased, to whom I owed the highest obligations, was studious of spiders, and his chief treasure was one the very image of this.” “How strange!” said the priest. “There has always appeared to me to be something uncanny in spiders. I should be glad to talk further with you on this subject. Several times I have fancied a strange intelligence in this monster; but I have natural horror of him, and therefore refrain from interviews.” “You do wisely, sir,” said Redclyffe. “His powers and purposes are questionably beneficent, at best.”