He found no fault with his rooms. They were not those of a poor student with a great future, but they were severe, masculine, and entirely adequate. When he had taken a cold swim in his marble tank, and exercised for half an hour in his gymnasium, the blood which his father’s millions had shocked to his brain receded and left it clear and logical again. But he was by no means reconciled to his lot; he feared the stifling influences of wealth, of which he had read in so many books. To make a great fortune in constant warfare with all the difficulties, acquiring a painful knowledge of the value of every dollar, was an achievement which might easily lead to greater accomplishment still, but to fling a man on his back without warning and pour gold over him by the ton-- He left his room abruptly and walked slowly downstairs. “What’s the use of thinking about it? or about what was to have been?--my absurd impossible past, which I shall put away in lavender and cherish like a dead love. There is nothing to be done but to make the best of a bad business, re-adapt myself--mortals are always doing that, anyhow. I shall ask for a respite before settling down to it, however.” When he reached the main floor he turned into the reception-room and strolled through the several large and lofty rooms which ended in a music-room of immense proportions. He inferred that it was the largest in New York; and, still feeling sore and satirical, returned to a more appreciative inspection of the other rooms. That their harmonies were exquisite he needed no telling, and he thought the pale soft tints, as faded and elusive as charming old memories, a pleasant contrast to his beloved Nature. That the few pictures were as great in art as they must be in price he also knew instinctively, and found consolation in the reflection that his father did not belong to the class of millionaires who furnished with a single check and leaned upon the agent and the decorator. The rich worn oddly built furniture looked as if brooding in cold aloofness upon an historic past, yet not wholly dissatisfied with its present. Where there were no pictures, bits of brocade, which looked as if a breath might waft them in search of their makers, had been inserted with such skill that they were a part of the background of tarnished gold. Not a chair, not a table, not a cabinet, was formed like anything Fessenden had ever seen, and there were numberless objects for which he had no name; but he approved of everything; indeed, they gave him a distinct pleasure--caressed the raw edges of his resentment, and inclined his mind more philosophically to his new condition.