lawyer, ha, ha! it wouldn't pay.'

I did not half like the equivocal office which my friend Mark had
prepared for me. If family squabbles were to arise, I had no fancy to mix
in them; and I did not want a collision with Mr. Larkin either; and, on
the whole, notwithstanding his modesty, I thought Wylder very well able
to take care of himself. There was time enough, however, to settle the
point. So by this time, being splendid in French boots and white vest,
and altogether perfect and refreshed, I emerged from my dressing-room,
Wylder by my side.

We had to get along a dim oak-panelled passage, and into a sort of
_oeil-de-boeuf_, with a lantern light above, from which diverged two
other solemn corridors, and a short puzzling turn or two brought us to
the head of the upper stairs. For I being a bachelor, and treated
accordingly, was airily perched on the third storey.

To my mind, there is something indescribably satisfactory in the intense
solidity of those old stairs and floors--no spring in the planks, not a
creak; you walk as over strata of stone. What clumsy grandeur! What
Cyclopean carpenters! What a prodigality of oak!

It was dark by this time, and the drawing-room, a vast and grand chamber,
with no light but the fire and a pair of dim soft lamps near the sofas
and ottomans, lofty, and glowing with rich tapestry curtains and
pictures, and mirrors, and carved oak, and marble--was already tenanted
by the ladies.

Old Lady Chelford, stiff and rich, a Vandyke dowager, with a general
effect of deep lace, funereal velvet, and pearls; and pale, with dreary