still bright, but to the ordinary eye the stiffness of the figures, the
lack of grace, the absence of soul in the composition was distressingly
apparent. It was, however, the squire's hobby, and it must be admitted
that he had very high authority upon his side. Some sensitive persons
rather shrank from seeing him handle these painted panels with those
peculiar scratchy finger-nails; it set their teeth on edge. He gave
considerable sums of money for many of these paintings, the only
liberality he permitted himself, or was capable of.

His own room or study was almost bare, and the solitary window looked on a
paved passage that led to the stables. There was nothing in it but a large
table, a bookcase, and two or three of the commonest horsehair chairs; the
carpet was worn bare. He had selected this room because there was a door
close by opening on the paved passage. Thus the bailiff of the Home Farm,
the steward, the gamekeeper, the policeman, or any one who wished to see
him on business, could come to the side door from the back and be shown in
to him without passing through the mansion. This certainly was a
convenient arrangement; yet one would have thought that he would have had
a second and more private study in which to follow his own natural bent of
mind. But the squire received the gardener and gave him directions about
the cucumbers--for he descended even to such minutiae as that--sitting at
the same table on which he had just written to an Italian art collector
respecting a picture, or to some great friend begging him to come and
inspect a fresh acquisition. The bookcase contained a few law books, a
manual for the direction of justices--the squire was on the commission--a
copy of Burke, and in one corner of a shelf a few musty papers referring
to family history. These were of some value, and the squire was proud of
showing them to those who took an interest in archaeology; yet he kept
them much as if they had been receipts for the footman's livery, or a
dozen bottles of stable medicine. He wrote with a quill pen, and as it