in the church." But I resolved to try nothing more with him at
present; and indeed was sorry that I had started the new question at
all, partly because thus I had again given him occasion to feel that
he knew better than I did, which was not good either for him or for
me in our relation to each other.

"This has been a fine old room once," I said, looking round the
workshop.

"You can see it wasn't a workshop always, sir. Many a grand
dinner-party has sat down in this room when it was in its glory.
Look at the chimney-piece there."

"I have been looking at it," I said, going nearer.

"It represents the four quarters of the world, you see."

I saw strange figures of men and women, one on a kneeling camel, one
on a crawling crocodile, and others differently mounted; with
various besides of Nature's bizarre productions creeping and flying
in stone-carving over the huge fire-place, in which, in place of a
fire, stood several new and therefore brilliantly red cart-wheels.
The sun shone through the upper part of a high window, of which many
of the panes were broken, right in upon the cart-wheels, which,
glowing thus in the chimney under the sombre chimney-piece, added to
the grotesque look of the whole assemblage of contrasts. The coffin
and the carpenter stood in the twilight occasioned by the sharp
division of light made by a lofty wing of the house that rose
flanking the other window. The room was still wainscotted in panels,
which, I presume, for the sake of the more light required for