She answered his question of whether the Doctor were at home by another, asking him what was his business; and was evidently inclined to be disagreeable at first, but softened in her manner when George told her that he had come all the way from England in order to see her master. She smiled at this, and condescended to admit him, not without a parting glance at the muddy footprints, and without enjoining him to rub his feet on the square scraper standing inside the hall which did duty for a mat. Then she ushered him into a small and meanly-furnished dining-room, which, like every other apartment in the house, smelt very strongly of tobacco, and there left him. George could not help smiling to himself as he looked round the room, the furniture and appointments of which recalled to him such pleasant memories of his German student days. There on the little sideboard was the coarse whity-brown cloth, so different from English table-linen, rolled up and waiting for use. There was the battered red japanned bread-tray, containing the half-dozen white _brodchens_, the lump of _sauerbrod_, and the thin slices of _schwarzbrod_. There were the three large cruets, so constantly required for salad-mixing purposes, and the blunt black-handled knives and forks. On the wall was a print from Horace Vernet's ghastly illustration of Bürger's Lenore, showing the swift death-ride, the maiden lying in fainting terror across the horse's neck, borne in the arms of the corpse, whose upraised visor shows its hideous features. There were also two or three portraits of eminent German physicians and surgeons. On the table lay folded copies of the _Cologne Gazette_ and the _Augsburg Zeitung_; and each corner of the room was garnished with a spittoon. George had just time to take observation of these things, when the door opened, and the old woman entering, begged him to follow her, as her master would see him. Down a long passage and across a small garden, not trim or neat by any means--more of a yard, indeed--in which linen that had been washed was hanging out to dry, and so to the Doctor's study--a large room surrounded with bookcases crammed and overflowing. Books piled in the middle of the floor in miscellaneous heaps; Pelions on Ossas of books in the corners having overcharged themselves, and shot their contents all over the neighbouring space. A large eight-day clock in a heavy open case ticking solemnly on one side of the fireplace, the niche on the other side being occupied by a suspended skeleton. On the mantelpiece bottles of anatomical preparations, polished bones, and cases of instruments; in the middle of the room an enormous old-fashioned writing-table, littered with papers and books on which the dust had thickly accumulated. Seated at it, busily engaged in writing, and scarcely looking up as they entered the room, was Dr. Hildebrand, one of the greatest men of science of his day.