The General was tremendously energetic, and he was working hard those days getting things into order. No one, he determined, should place his bric-a-brac or statuary or pictures but himself; he had an extreme sense of tidiness, and was fidgety about his things. He would have no help from the women servants. He and Hawkins did all the unpacking and hanging and setting up. I could understand better now his angry indignation when he found me handling his books, and took me for a maid-servant, and I was quite proud of the immense compliment he paid me when he left me so much to my own guidance among them. He was not exactly a reading man, though he could enjoy an hour with a book and a pipe as much as any man living. A great part of his library had come down to him from his grandfather, the Bishop of Westchester, and he had added to it with knowledge and pleasure, yet without any very overweening delight in the books as books. He told me once that he liked books about fighting, whether the fight was in the natural or the spiritual world. The _Iliad_ or the _Holy War_ equally appealed to him, and in _The Soldiers Pocket-Book_, or the last treatise on gunnery, he was pretty equally at home. When we met at tea-time, we each gave a report of what we had been doing. The General himself always fed Paudeen with a few Naples biscuits and a little saucer full of milk-and-water, after which he was dismissed. "Now, right about face--march!" the General would say, adding, "Discipline is necessary for little dogs as well as for human beings if they are not to infringe the rights of others." And Paudeen soon understood that at "March!" he was to retire to the mat and ask for no more food. Sometimes after tea I went, at the General's request, to see what he had been doing. Rose Hill was going to be a very beautiful house, I thought, not being used to the rich colours and deep dyes of the carpets and draperies, of which the General had a great profusion. These made a fine background for the statues and the pottery and bronzes and silver. I used to think it all too beautiful for an old soldier, whose own tastes I gathered to be quite simple. Once I said something of the kind to him. We were great friends by this time, and I could risk being impertinent. He had called me to see a Clytie in front of a piece of Indian embroidery, purple, bronze, and scarlet. "She's lovely," said I heartily. "What a beautiful house you will have presently, and all for yourself, General!" "Ah!" said he, "you're thinking it's thrown away on the old soldier." "Oh, no," I said hastily, "I didn't mean that!" "You did, child, and you were thinking as well, though you'd be too gentle to own it even to yourself, that I am an old fool for gathering such things when a few years must see them sent to the hammer. And you're right, so far as you know. But when I was gathering them I had no thought of surrounding my own worn-out old life with beauty and luxury."