in the story I am narrating. This was a very large and low wicker chair
of a form then coming into fashion in Oxford, and since, I am told,
become a familiar object of most college rooms. It was cushioned with a
gaudy pattern of chintz, and bought for new of an upholsterer at the
bottom of the High Street.

Mr. Gaskell was taken by his uncle to spend Easter in Rome, and
obtaining special leave from his college to prolong his travels; did not
return to Oxford till three weeks of the summer term were passed and May
was well advanced. So impatient was he to see his friend that he would
not let even the first evening of his return pass without coming round
to John's rooms. The two young men sat without lights until the night
was late; and Mr. Gaskell had much to narrate of his travels, and spoke
specially of the beautiful music which he had heard at Easter in the
Roman churches. He had also had lessons on the piano from a celebrated
professor of the Italian style, but seemed to have been particularly
delighted with the music of the seventeenth-century composers, of whose
works he had brought back some specimens set for piano and violin.

It was past eleven o'clock when Mr. Gaskell left to return to New
College; but the night was unusually warm, with a moon near the full,
and John sat for some time in a cushioned window-seat before the open
sash thinking over what he had heard about the music of Italy. Feeling
still disinclined for sleep, he lit a single candle and began to turn
over some of the musical works which Mr. Gaskell had left on the table.
His attention was especially attracted to an oblong book, bound in
soiled vellum, with a coat of arms stamped in gilt upon the side. It was
a manuscript copy of some early suites by Graziani for violin and
harpsichord, and was apparently written at Naples in the year 1744, many
years after the death of that composer. Though the ink was yellow and