Fiction > Book editions > London, 1885 - Dynamiter

112 KEW ARABIAN KlGIlTS.
as the pictures had been viewed and praised, she was
easily persuaded to join the painter in a single glass.
' Here,' slie said, ' are my respects ; and a pleasure it is,
in this horrible house, to see a gentleman like yourself,
so affable and free, and a very nice painter, I am sure.'
One glass so agreeably prefaced, was sure to lead to the
acceptance of a second ; at the third, Somerset was free
to cease from the affectation of keeping her company ;
and as for the fourth, she asked it of her own accord.
' For indeed,' said she, ' what with all these clocks and
chemicals, without a drop of the creature life would be
impossible entirely. And you seen yourself that even
M'Guire was glad to beg for it. And even himself,
when he is downhearted with all these cruel disappoint-
ments, though as temperate a man as any child, will be
sometimes crying for a glass of it. And I'll thank you
for a thimbleful to settle what I got.' Soon after, she
])egan with tears to narrate the deathbed dispositions
and lament the trifling assets of her husband. Then she
declared she heard ' the master ' calling her, rose to her
feet, made but one lurch of it into the still-life rockery,
and with her head upon the lobster, fell into stertorous
slumbers.
Somerset mounted at once to the first story, and
opened the door of the drawing-room, which was bril-
liantly lit by several lamps. It was a great apartment ;
looking on the square with three tall windows, and
joined by a pair of ample folding-doors to the next
room ; elegant in proportion, papered in sea-green, fur-
nished in velvet of a delicate blue, and adorned with
a majestic mantelpiece of variously tinted marbles.
Such was the room that Somerset remembered ; that
which he now beheld was changed in almost every
feature : the furniture covered with a figured chintz ;
the walls hung with a rhubarb-coloured paper, and
diversified by the curtained recesses for no less than
seven windows. It seemed to himself that he must
have entered, without observing the transition, into the
adjoining house. Presently from these more specious
changes, his eye condescended to the many curious