As we walked toward the mansion, I stopped suddenly to listen to a most musical and familiar and welcome sound,--the plash of water. My companion divined my thought. We turned aside, and a few steps brought us to a marble fountain. It was in the form of a chaste and lovely female figure, from whose chiseled fingers a shower of glittering drops continually poured. Severnius took an alabaster cup from the base of the statue, filled it, and offered me a drink. The water was sparkling and intensely cold, and had the suggestion rather than the fact of sweetness. "Delicious!" I exclaimed. He understood me, for he smiled and nodded his head, a gesture which seemed to say, "It gives me pleasure to know that you find it good." I could not conceive of his expressing himself in any other than the politest manner. We proceeded into the house. How shall I describe that house? Imagine a place which responds fully to every need of the highest culture and taste, without burdening the senses with oppressive luxury, and you have it! In a word, it was an ideal house and home. Both outside and inside, white predominated. But here and there were bits of color the most brilliant, like jewels. I found that I had never understood the law of contrast, or of economy in art; I knew nothing of "values," or of relationships in this wonderful realm, of which it maybe truly said, "Fools rush in where angels fear to tread." I learned subsequently that all Marsians of taste are sparing of rich colors, as we are of gems, though certain classes indulge in extravagant and gaudy displays, recognizing no law but that which permits them to have and to do whatsoever they like. I immediately discovered that two leading ideas were carried out in this house; massiveness and delicacy. There was extreme solidity in everything which had a right to be solid and stable; as the walls, and the supporting pillars, the staircases, the polished floors, and some pieces of stationary furniture, and the statuary,--the latter not too abundant. Each piece of statuary, by the way, had some special reason for being where it was; either it served some practical purpose, or it helped to carry out a poetical idea,--so that one was never taken aback as by an incongruity. Some of the floors were of marble, in exquisite mosaic-work, and others were of wood richly inlaid. The carpets were beautiful, but they were used sparingly. When we sat down in a room a servant usually brought a rug or a cushion for our feet. And when we went out under the trees they spread carpets on the grass and put pillows on the rustic seats.