"This is the great drawing-room. Designed by Onigo Jones. Pictures by Watteau. Queen Elizabeth sat in that chair near the antique mantelpiece of lapis-lazuli; this chair is never moved. This, the adjoining room, is the ballroom. Pictures by Bouchier; notice the painted ceiling, the finest in Europe, and costing over twenty thousand pounds. The next room is the royal antechamber, so called because James II. used it for writing letters while visiting Anglemere. We now pass into the banquet hall. Carved oak by Grinling Gibbings. You will remark the lifesized figures along the dado. It was here that Charles I., the Martyr, dined with his consort, Henrietta. That buffet, large as it is, will not hold the service of gold plate. That painted window's said to be the oldest of any, not ecclesiastic, in Europe. It is priceless. The pictures round the room are by Van Dyck and Carlo Dolci. The one over the mantelpiece is a portrait of the seventh Earl of Angleford."
Nell looked up at it. She was half confused by the splendors of the place and her efforts to follow the descriptions and explanations of the stately housekeeper; but as she raised her eyes to the portrait she was conscious of a sensation of surprise. For in some vague way the portrait reminded her of Drake. The pictured Angleford wore a ruff, and was habited in satin and armor, but the face——
"Come on! What are you staring at?" said Dick, impatiently; and she followed the cicerone into another room, and listened to the monotonous voice repeating the well-learned lesson.
"We have here the library, the famous Angleford library. There are twenty thousand volumes, many of them unique. They are often consulted by savants—with the permission of the earl. Many of them are priceless. That portrait is Lord Bacon," et cetera, et cetera.
"Let us go," whispered Nell, in Dick's ear. "The greatness of the house of Angleford is getting on my nerves! I—I can't help thinking of Beaumont Buildings! It is too great a contrast!"
"Shut up!" retorted Dick, who was intensely interested.
Nell went through the remainder of the inspection with a vague feeling of dissatisfaction. What right had any one man to such luxury, to such splendor, while others were born to penury and suffering?
While she was asking herself this question, the housekeeper had led them to the picture gallery, the gallery which artists came from all corners of the world to visit.
"Portraits of the earls of Angleford," she said, waving a black-clad, condescending arm.
"Is the portrait of the present Earl of Angleford here?" asked Dick, with not unnatural interest.