hearth; but even here no fires were suffered till nightfall, nor was
there so much as a carpet in the castle. Odo's grandmother, the old
Marchioness, a heavy woman who would doubtless have enjoyed her ease in
a cushioned seat, was afoot all day attending to her household; for
besides the dairy and the bakehouse and the stillroom where fruits were
stewed and pastes prepared, there was the great spinning-room full of
distaffs and looms, where the women spun and wove all the linen used in
the castle and the coarse stuffs worn by its inmates; with workshops for
the cobbler and tailor who clothed and shod the Marquess and his
household. All these the Marchioness must visit, and attend to her
devotions between; the ladies being governed by a dark-faced priest,
their chaplain and director, who kept them perpetually running along the
cold stone corridors to the chapel in a distant wing, where they knelt
without so much as a brazier to warm them or a cushion to their knees.
As to the chapel, though larger and loftier than that of Pontesordo,
with a fine carved and painted tabernacle and many silver candlesticks,
it seemed to Odo, by reason of its bare walls, much less beautiful than
that deserted oratory; nor did he, amid all the novelty of his
surroundings, cease to regret the companionship of his familiar images.

His delight was the greater, therefore, when, exploring a part of the
castle now quite abandoned, he came one day on a vaulted chamber used as
a kind of granary, where, under layers of dirt and cobwebs, lovely
countenances flowered from the walls. The scenes depicted differed
indeed from those of Pontesordo, being less animated and homely and more
difficult for a child to interpret; for here were naked laurel-crowned
knights on prancing horses, nimble goat-faced creatures grouped in
adoration round a smoking altar and youths piping to saffron-haired
damsels on grass-banks set with poplars. The very strangeness of the
fable set forth perhaps engaged the child's fancy; or the benignant