gone century. It looked as if unnumbered generations of Penrhyns had
slept there since the hand of the furnisher had touched it. The hard,
polished, ascetic-looking floor was black with age; the tapestry on
the walls conveyed but a suggestion of what its pattern and color had
been; a huge four-posted bed heavily shrouded with curtains stood
in the centre of the room, and there were a number of heavy, carved
pieces of furniture whose use no modern Penrhyn would pretend to
explain. The vaulted ceiling was panelled, and the windows were
narrow and long and high. Sufficient light found its way through them,
however, to dress by, and there was a bright log-fire in the open
fire-place.

"Jones," said Dartmouth, after he had admiringly examined the details
of the room and was getting into his clothes, "just throw those
curtains up over the roof of that bed. I like the antique, but I don't
care to be smothered. Give me my necktie, and look out for the bed
before you forget it."

Jones looked doubtfully up at the canopy. "That is pretty 'igh, sir,"
he said. "Hif I can find a step-ladder--"

"A step-ladder in a Welsh castle! The ante-deluge Penrhyns would turn
in their graves, or to be correct, in their family vaults. No true
Welsh noble is guilty of departing from the creed of his ancestors to
the tune of domestic comforts. It is fortunate a man does not have
to marry his wife's castle as well as herself. Get up on to that
cabinet--it is twice as high as yourself--and you can manage the
curtains quite easily."

Jones with some difficulty succeeded in moving the tall piece of