‘Good,’ said Mr. Sivewright. ‘I bought those things to sell again—speculated in them as a broker speculates in shares. Yet it gives me a sharp pang to think of their being scattered. They represent all the experience of my life, my youthful worship of art, the knowledge of my later years. I have looked at them, and handled them, till they seem to me like sentient things.’ ‘Even Pharaoh yonder,’ said Lucius with a smile, anxious to turn the current of his patient’s thoughts, which had been dwelling too long upon painful themes, ‘though he seems scarcely a lively object to adorn a bedchamber.’ ‘Pharaoh was a bargain,’ answered Mr. Sivewright, ‘or I shouldn’t have bought him. The manufacture of mummies is one of the extinct arts, and the article must rise in market value with the lapse of years. New towns spring up; provincial museums multiply—each must have its mummy.’ ‘Come, Mr. Sivewright, you have been talking rather more than is good for an invalid. May I unlock those doors, and ring for your supper?’ ‘Yes, if you forbid further talk, but I have something more, another matter, and one of some importance, to discuss with you.’ ‘Let that stand over till to-morrow. You have fatigued and excited yourself too much already. I will be with you at the same time to-morrow evening, if you like.’ ‘Do, there is something I am anxious to speak about; not quite so important as the subject of our conversation to-night, but yet something that ought to be spoken of. Come to-morrow evening at the same time. Yes, you are right, I have tired myself already.’ Mr. Sivewright flung himself back in his chair exhausted. Lucius reproached himself for having suffered his patient to talk so much, and upon so agitating a topic. He stayed while the old man sipped a cup of beef-tea, which he finished with a painful effort; Lucille standing by, and looking on anxiously all the while. She had brought the little supper-tray from the adjoining room with her own hands. ‘Do try to eat it, dear grandpapa,’ she said, as Mr. Sivewright trifled with his spoon, and looked despondently at the half-filled cup. ‘I made it myself, on purpose that it should be good and strong.’ ‘It is good enough, child, if you could give me the inclination to eat,’ answered the old man, pushing away the cup with a sigh; ‘and now good-night to you both. I am tired, and shall go to bed at once.’ ‘Don’t lock the dressing-room door to-night, grandpapa,’ said Lucille. ‘I am going to sleep there in future, so that I may be close at hand if you should want anything in the night.’ ‘I never want anything in the night,’ answered Mr. Sivewright impatiently. ‘You may just as well sleep in your own room.’ ‘But I like to be near you, grandpapa, and Lucius says you ought to take a little beef-tea very early in the morning. Please leave the door unlocked.’ ‘Very well; but, in that case, mind you lock the outer door.’ ‘I will be careful to do so, grandpapa.’