[Corelinux-public] herib. "De Blacquaire," said the

[Aveado A. <luc...@ja...>]

 front room with a great fireplace, which rose so high that there was
but just enough room between the mantle-board and the whitewashed
ceiling for the squat brass candlesticks and the big foreign sea-shells
which stood there for ornament. The diamonded window admitted so little
light that on entering here from the outer sunshine the visitor could
only make out the details one by one. When his eyes became accustomed to
the semi-darkness he was sure to notice a dozen or more green baize bags
which hung upon the walls, each half defining, in the same vague way as
all the others, the outline of the object it contained. Each green baize
bag was closely tied at the neck, and suspended at an equal height with
the rest upon a nail. There was something of a vault-like odor in the
room, traceable probably to the two facts that the carpet was laid upon
a brick floor, and that the chamber was rarely opened to the air. Ezra
Gold, seated upright in an oaken arm-chair, with a hand lightly grasping
the end of either arm, was at home in the close, cool shadow of the
place. The cloistered air, the quiet and the dim shade seemed to suit
him, and he to be in harmony with them. His eyes were open, and alighted
now and again with an air of recognition on some familiar object, but
otherwise he might have seemed asleep. On the central table was a great
pile of musi