The walls were hung with paintings representing scenes of strange variety and interest, and connected with lands far--far away. Thus, one depicted a council of red men assembled around a blazing fire, on the border of one of the great forests of North America; another showed the interior of an Esquimaux hut amidst the eternal ice of the Pole;--a third delineated, with fearfully graphic truth, the writhing of a human victim in the folds of the terrific anaconda in the island of Ceylon; a fourth exhibited a pleasing contrast to the one previously cited, by having for its subject a family meeting of Chinese on the terraced roof of a high functionary's palace at Perkin; a fifth represented the splendid court of King Henry the Eighth in London; a sixth showed the interior of the harem of the Ottoman Sultan. But there were two portraits amongst this beautiful and varied collection of pictures, all of which, we should observe, appeared to have been very recently executed--two portraits which we must pause to describe. One represented a tall man of about forty years of age, with magnificent light hair--fine blue eyes, but terrible in expression--a countenance indisputably handsome, though every lineament denoted horror and alarm--and a symmetrical form, bowed by the weight of sorrow. Beneath this portrait was the following inscription:--"F., _Count of_ A., _terminated his career on the 1st of August, 1517_." The other portrait alluded to was that of an old--old man, who had apparently numbered ninety winters. He was represented as cowering over a few embers in a miserable hovel, while the most profound sorrow was depicted on his countenance. Beneath this picture was the ensuing inscription:--"F. W., _January 7th, 1516. His last day thus._" There was another feature in that apartment to which we must likewise direct our reader's attention, ere we pursue the thread of our narrative. This was an object hanging against the wall, next to the second portrait just now described. It also had the appearance of being a picture--or at all events a frame of the same dimensions as the others; but whether that frame contained a painting, or whether it were empty, it was impossible to say, so long as it remained concealed by the large black cloth which covered it, and which was carefully fastened by small silver nails at each corner. This strange object gave a lugubrious and sinister appearance to a room in other respects cheerful, gay, and elegant. But to resume our tale. When Agnes awoke from her stupor, she found herself reclining on a soft ottoman of purple velvet, fringed with gold; and the handsome stranger, who had borne her from the church, was bathing her brow with water which he took from a crystal vase on a marble table.