The decorations inside the house were the most airy and graceful imaginable. The frescoes were like clouds penetrated by the rarest tints,--colors idealized,--cunningly wrought into surpassingly lovely pictures, which did not at once declare the artist's intention, but had to be studied. They were not only an indulgence to the eye, but a charming occupation for the thoughts. In fact, almost everything about the place appealed to the higher faculties as well as to the senses. There comes to us, from time to time, a feeling of disenchantment toward almost everything life has to offer us. It never came to me with respect to Severnius' house. It had for me an interest and a fascination which I was never able to dissect, any more than you would be able to dissect the charm of the woman you love. With all its fine artistic elaborations, there was a simplicity about it which made it possible for the smallest nature to measure its capacity there, as well as the greatest. The proper sort of a yardstick for all uses has inch-marks. Severnius took me upstairs and placed a suite of rooms at my command, and indicated to me that he supposed I needed rest, which I did sorely. But I could not lie down until I had explored my territory. The room into which I had been ushered, and where Severnius left me, closing the noiseless door behind him, looked to me like a pretty woman's boudoir,--almost everything in it being of a light and delicate color. The walls were cream-tinted, with a deep frieze of a little darker shade, relieved by pale green and brown decorations. The wood work was done in white enamel paint. The ceiling was sprinkled with silver stars. Two or three exquisite water-colors were framed in silver, and the andirons, tongs and shovel, and the fender round the fire-place, and even the bedstead, were silver-plated. The bed, which stood in an alcove, was curtained with silk, and had delicacies of lace also, as fine and subtle as Arachne's web. The table and a few of the chairs looked like our spindle-legged Chippendale things. And two or three large rugs might have been of Persian lamb's wool. A luxurious couch was placed across one corner of the room and piled with down cushions. An immense easy chair, or lounging chair, stood opposite. The dressing table, of a peculiarly beautiful cream-colored wood, was prettily littered with toilet articles in carved ivory or silver mountings. Above it hung a large mirror. There was a set of shelves for books and bric-a-brac; a porphyry lamp-stand with a lamp dressed in an exquisite pale-green shade; a chiffonier of marquetry. The mantel ornaments were vases of fine pottery and marble statuettes. A musical instrument lay on a low bamboo stand. I could not play upon it, but the strings responded sweetly to the touch. A little investigation revealed a luxurious bath-room. I felt the need of a bath, and turned on the water and plunged in. As I finished, a clock somewhere chimed the hour of midnight.