After having said this, Thomas Lobyer the elder declined all further discussion upon the subject of the house that was to be built for him. In the space of a few months the lordly mansion arose on the slope of a wooded hill-side, and all the district wondered at its grandeur. The architect had _carte blanche_. There were chambers panelled with oak and cedar, sandal and maple-wood. There was a staircase of Carrara marble, with balustrades of carved bronze, and lamps copied from antique Roman models. Julius Cæsar might have ascended such a staircase, and would have found nothing to criticise in the perfection of its appointments. Thomas Lobyer the elder approved of the mansion because it was large and handsome, and was very slightly affected by the odour of classicality that pervaded it. He freely paid the amounts which the great builder demanded of him, and it was only when he looked over his banker's-book at the close of the transaction, that he knew how dearly his fancy had cost. He sent the architect to London to give the necessary orders to upholsterers; and Pevenshall Place was furnished in perfect harmony with its architecture, but with very little reference to the peculiar taste of its proprietor. The architect had an especial tenderness for the classical; and the great millowner, eating his frugal meal alone in his vast dining-room, illumined by candles in oxidised silver branches that might have appropriately adorned the banquet table in the Apollo chamber, was inclined to think his new mansion somewhat cold and cheerless of aspect. It may have been that the millionaire was prone to be dispirited on that first day of his occupation, for the morning's post had brought him a letter from the dame in whose house his son and heir was lodged, and the terms of the epistle were very uncomplimentary to Thomas the younger; and this feminine complaint about Master Lobyer's delinquencies--his cruelty to smaller and weaker boys--his falsehood and cunning--his obstinate resistance of authority--was only the beginning of the evil to come. From the day in which the millowner took possession of his splendid dwelling, until the hour in which he exchanged it for a very mean and narrow habitation, his life was poisoned by corroding cares--embittered by perpetual disappointments, and all his cares and all his disappointments had one common cause in the person of his son. He took a disgust for the gorgeous mansion whose erection had cost him so much money. His troubles weighed very heavily upon him in those spacious rooms, amidst whose chilly splendour there was no occupation for him. At Pevenshall the rich man found too much leisure in which to brood upon his cares and disappointments, and he was always glad to return to Manchester, where he had a comfortable dwelling attached to his great warehouses, and where he could steep his brain in the small vexations and perplexities of commerce, to the oblivion of the prodigal who was so slow to return.