He now turned from the pictures to the book-cases, and found them to contain a heterogeneous collection of ancient and modern volumes, carelessly ranged upon the shelves, without reference either to age or theme. Latin and English classics stood shoulder to shoulder; law and poetry were harmoniously cheek by jowl; divinity and science amiably helped each other to stand upright; history, philosophy, morality, and controversy, met on the same plane, and sunk their differences under one uniform coat of dust. Geography that read like fiction, geology that had no interest except to the antiquarian, and infidelity that had not a peg left to stand upon, were huddled together in one corner, and (no doubt to their utter amazement) helped, in these latter days, to point the same moral. Growing oppressed, at last, with the sight of so much hopelessly shelved thought, so many pages bearing the prints of a long succession of fingers now crumbled into dust, Bergan turned back to the hall, mounted the staircase, and glanced into two or three of the chambers. He found in all faded carpets, ancient bureaus, high-post bedsteads, shadow-haunted hangings, a thick coating of dust, and a heavy, breathless scent which, it seemed to him, death must needs have left there, in his oldtime visits. Indeed, he could almost have believed that the last occupant of each dusky cavern of a bed had stiffened into clay therein, and been left to choke the air, and coat the furniture, with his own mouldering substance. No lighter dust, he thought, could have made the atmosphere so thick, or caused him to draw his breath so heavily. Opening the last door in the gallery, Bergan was startled to find a room with every appearance of recent occupancy. Not a speck of dust dimmed the carpet or the furniture; the curtains and the bed-drapery stirred lightly with the breeze from a half-open window; the soft pillows seemed waiting for the head that had dreamed upon them last night; a chair, with a shawl thrown carelessly over the back, stood where it must needs have been left a moment ago; an open workbox showed a suggestive confusion of spools of silk and bits of ribbon and worsted; a vase of flowers adorned the mantel; and a little white glove lay on the toilet-table, among brushes and scent-bottles, and was reflected in a small, bright mirror. Bergan hastily drew back, feeling intuitively that he had intruded upon a maiden's bed-chamber, keeping still the perfume of her sweet breath and happy thoughts.