dining-room, and both apartments were furnished richly in the fashion
of the time--tons of solid mahogany in the latter, and a pasture of
grass-green carpet and brocade upholsterings in the former, lit up with
gilded wall-paper and curtain-cornices as by rays of a pale sun. Curly
rosewood sofas and arm-chairs, and marbled and mirrored chiffonniers,
and the like, were in such profusion upstairs as to do away with the
air of bleakness common to a right-angled chamber of large size and
middle-class arrangement. A fine grand piano stood open in a prominent
place. Four large shaded lamps and four piano candles pleasantly
irradiated the whole; while three French windows, opening on a balcony,
still stood wide to the summer night.

By the great white marble mantelpiece, under the great gilt-framed
pier-glass, filling the huge chair specially dedicated to his use,
Father Pennycuick sat in comfortable gossip with his old friend,
Thornycroft of Bundaboo. It irked him to separate himself from
pipe and newspaper, baggy coat and slouchy slippers, and his corpulent
frame objected to stairs; but when he had guests he considered it his
duty to toil up after them, in patent shoes and dining costume, and sit
amongst them until music or card games were on the way, when he would
retire as unobtrusively as his size and heavy footstep permitted. It
was the custom to pretend not to see or hear him go, and it would have
annoyed him exceedingly had anyone bidden him good-night.

The pair talked shop, after the manner of old squatters when they sit
apart; but the tall, spare, grey man with the thoughtful face--more
like a soldier than a sheep-farmer--was not thinking much of his
flocks and herds. His thoughts followed the direction of his quiet
eyes, focussed upon an amber silk gown and its immediate surroundings.
Mr Thornycroft was Deborah's godfather, and at forty-seven was to all