George Trenchard’s study expressed, very pleasantly, his personality. The room’s walls were of a deep warm red, and covering three sides ran high book-cases with glass fronts; within these book-cases were beautiful new editions, ugly old ones, books, for the greater part, relating to his favourite period, all ranged and ordered with the most delicate care. The windows of the room were tall and bright even on dull and foggy days, the carpet soft and thick, the leather chairs large and yielding, the fireplace wide and shining. Most significant of all was his writing-table; upon this lay everything that any writer could possibly desire, from the handsomest of gold inkstands to the minutest of elastic bands. There was also here a little bust of Sir Walter Scott. Within this room George Trenchard knew, always, perfect happiness—a very exceptional man, indeed, that he could know it so easily. He knew it by the simple expedient of shutting off entirely from his consciousness the rest of mankind; his study door once closed, he forgot his family absolutely. No one was allowed to disturb or interrupt him; it was understood that he was at work upon a volume that would ultimately make another of that series that contained already such well-known books as “William Wordsworth and his Circle,” “Hazlitt—The Man in his Letters” and “The Life of Thomas de Quincey.” These had appeared a number of years ago; he had been indeed a young man when he had written them. It was supposed that a work entitled “The Lake Poets, a Critical Survey” would appear ‘Next Autumn’.