In the Green Drawing-room, the Red Drawing-room, the State Bed-room, and the various other rooms and corridors, are priceless treasures of art; for besides invaluable paintings by the greatest masters, there are here beautiful pieces of furniture, made of tortoise-shell and inlaid with gold or pearl, and ancient marriage-chests, which once belonged to Italian princesses of bygone days. The armory contains one of the most valuable collections in England, and in the State Bed-room are many relics of Queen Anne. One really wearies of so much costliness which it is utterly impossible to appreciate at one visit. "Haven't we time to walk in the gardens a little longer?" asked Barbara, wistfully. To her, Nature was nearer and dearer than all the wonders of art and history. After a ramble through the bewitchingly lovely gardens,--going across ancient drawbridges, spanning long-unused, grass-grown moats; under little postern-gates; into rustic grottoes--they at last came to the conservatory, in which is preserved the "Warwick Vase." This is made of white marble, carved with various devices. "It has a curious history," answered Mrs. Pitt, in reply to the children's questions. "In 1770, some workmen found it at the bottom of a small lake which is about sixteen miles from Rome. Of course, it is not possible to determine with any certainty how it came to be there, but as Hadrian's Villa was in A.D. 546 occupied by a king of the Goths, an enemy who was then laying siege to Rome, it has been thought that the vase was cast into the lake, to save it from the hands of the invaders. The second Earl of Warwick was its purchaser." Slowly and unwillingly they wended their way back through the gardens, to the central court of the castle, and then out under the old gateway. "My!" cried John, "it must have taken heaps of soldiers to defend a place like this in the Middle Ages! I wish I'd been here when it was just plumb full of great warriors,--when the moat had water in it, the drawbridge worked, and sentinels called out to you for the password as you came near the gate. I suppose they could peep out at you from those little windows up high, too." John looked longingly back, as they walked away.