We entered a suit of rooms in no manner differing from the parlors of a private house. They were richly furnished and well lighted, close inner blinds, hidden by heavy silk curtains, shutting in the light from the observation of the street. There were three rooms in this suit; the two first were now deserted, though the odor of wine, and scented hair and handkerchiefs, showed that they had been recently occupied. In these two the chandeliers were partially obscured, but the third room was still brilliantly illuminated. We walked toward it. Magnificent curtains of amber silk depended from the arch which separated it from the parlors. Only one of these curtains was now drawn back, the others trailing on the carpet, and closing the apartment from our observation. Mr. Burton placed me in the shadow of the curtains, where I could see--myself unseen. The room was furnished as a library, two of its walls being covered with books; I particularly noticed a marble bust of Shakspeare, very fine. A severe, yet liberal, taste marked the choice and arrangement of every thing. A painting of Tasso reading his poems to the Princess, hung between the two back windows. It was a well-arranged library, certainly; yet the four occupants were engrossed in a study more fascinating than that of any of the books by which they were surrounded. If Mephistophiles could have stepped from his binding of blue and gold, and made the acquaintance of the company, he would have been quite charmed. Two couples sat at two tables playing cards. All the other visitors to the establishment had gone away, some of them to theft or suicide, perhaps, save those four, who still lingered, wrapped up in the dread enchantment of the hour. The two at the table I first glanced at, were both strangers to me; at the second, I could not see the face of one of the players, whose back was toward me; but the face of the other was directly in front of me, and under the full light of the chandelier. This person was James Argyll. My astonishment was profound. That I had never fraternized with him, I considered partly my own fault--there are persons so naturally antagonistic as to make real friendship between them impossible--and I had often blamed myself for our mutual coldness. But, with all my dislike of some of his qualities--as, for instance, his indolent acceptance of his uncle's bounty, which, in the eyes of a person of my disposition, took away half his manliness--with all my unfriendly aversion to him, I had never suspected him of absolutely bad habits.