colors of exquisite delicacy. And over it all was the roof of white or
pale gray glass tinged with golden-red--the roof which I had seen from
the outside when it seemed to me like a cloud resting on the stony
summit of a hill.

On coming in I had the impression of an empty, silent place; yet the
inmates of the house were all there; they were sitting and reclining on
low couches, some lying at their ease on straw mats on the floor; some
were reading, others were occupied with some work in their hands, and
some were conversing, the sound coming to me like a faint murmur from a
distance.

At one side, somewhere about the center of the room, there was a broad
raised place, or dais, with a couch on it, on which the father was
reclining at his ease. Beside the couch stood a lectern on which a large
volume rested, and before him there was a brass box or cabinet, and
behind the couch seven polished brass globes were ranged, suspended on
axles resting on bronze frames. These globes varied in size, the largest
being not less than about twelve feet in circumference.

I noticed that there were books on a low stand near me. They were all
folios, very much alike in form and thickness; and seeing presently that
the others were all following their own inclinations, and considering
that I had been left to my own resources and that it is a good plan when
at Rome to do as the Romans do, I by-and-by ventured to help myself to a
volume, which I carried to one of the reading-stands.

Books are grand things--sometimes, thought I, prepared to follow the
advice I had received, and find out by reading all about the customs of
this people, especially their ideas concerning _The House_, which