The music-room has a grand ceiling. Its walls are incrusted with crimson, with a fresco of black oak. The engravings are after Millais, Alma Tadema, Sir Frederick Leighton, Luke Fildes, Orchardson, Leader, and Rosa Bonheur. The blue china, which is set out on the great mantel-board, once belonged to Rossetti, and the grand piano was made by Schidemeyer, of Stuttgart. [Illustration: THE STUDY--HASSENDEAN. _From a Photo by Elliot & Fry._] After lunch, I not only listened to the fine tones of the Schidemeyer--but something more. It was a most charming _entr'acte_ to our chat together. We were all sitting in the conservatory, and Dick, the canary, was trilling some of his purest notes. At an almost unnoticed sign from her mother, Miss Lloyd quietly left her chair and was followed by her elder brother; the opening bars of a delightful song of Spain were played, and then the voice of Miss Lloyd was heard in all its girlish sweetness. The little canary remained silent until the finish of the song, then it burst out again; once more came a chord from the piano--a familiar chord--"Good-bye, Sweetheart, Good-bye," and I listened to the magnificent voice of our great tenor. He probably never sang with greater expression or intenser feeling than he did that afternoon at Hassendean. The two young lads from Sidcup rested their heads on their hands, leant forward so that they might not miss a note, and made frantic efforts to outrival the applause of perhaps one of the smallest audiences Mr. Edward Lloyd has ever sung to in his life. When he had finished, Mrs. Lloyd quietly leant across to me very happily, and said: "I haven't heard my husband sing that song for more than fifteen years!" [Illustration: THE DINING-ROOM--HASSENDEAN. _From a Photo by Elliot & Fry._] So we settled down for our talk--and the story of a career which has been one long ascent to the very top rung of the ladder was told very modestly, with a constant genuinely kindly reference to others running through the whole. There is nothing self-assertive about Mr. Lloyd--he remains steadily the same all the time; watching for opportunities to praise his brother and sister artists, though it be at his own expense. When he speaks of others he endeavours to impress upon you that he _means_ it; when he must needs speak of himself he does so with a merry laugh and hurries up to get it over. His heart is perfectly open. He is not a "coddled up" individual; he never did and never will believe in it. He never muffles his throat up in a huge silk scarf, but believes in the low collar and "weathering it." The only time he muffled his neck he caught a fearful cold. His advice is: "Breathe through the nose, and not through the mouth, when coming out of a hot room. Don't wrap up; whilst an egg beaten in a very little whisky and water will be found an excellent stamina. [Illustration: THE DRAWING-ROOM--HASSENDEAN. _From a Photo by Elliot & Fry._]