There is the bookcase, containing, among its volumes of reference and service, sundry eccentricities of literature: “Mr. Salmon,” for instance, with his exhaustive “Geographical and Historical Grammar,” sandwiching between its useful rules and tables tidbits of valuable information, including such subjects as “Cleopatra’s Asp;” adding also “a few paradoxes,” otherwise childish riddles, wherewith the simple olden time was wont to amuse itself. Here, on the walls hangs the sampler of one of the ladies Stockton, long since skilled with the “fine needle and nice thread.” Close beside this notable needlework hangs a parchment, the will of one of the forefathers of the house, who held it no “baseness to write fair,” if this scarcely faded engrossing bespeaks the writer’s creed in penmanship. Here, a grim, gaunt candlestick does picket duty all by itself: it is a bayonet taken from the last battlefield of the South—a bayonet inverted, the point thrust into a standard, the stock serving as socket for the candle. In this rapid survey of the room, the lines of old Turberville attract the eye, where they appear inscribed over the mantel:
“Yee that frequent the hilles and highest holtes of all,
Assist mee with your skilful quilles, and listen when I call.”
On the mantel reposes a wickedly crooked dirk, sheathed and quiescent now. It is the weapon that slew the redoubted Po Money, a Dacoit chief, of whom the missionary who consigned it to the present owner naïvely observes, on his card of presentation, “Since he would never repent, it seemed best that he should be out of the world.”
By this window are flowers, a few; by choice a vase for each; for here the individuality of a flower is prized, and the crowded and discomfited loveliness of flowers in the mass is not tolerated. So a day-lily, or an early dahlia, may have its place, by itself, in undisputed queendom. A branch of vari-colored “foliage plant” completes the decorative floral company. But who is this—coming as in dyed garments from Bozrah—that reposes among these pied leaves, beneath their “protective coloring”? A cramped prisoner but a few hours before, in the world, but not of it. The bright creature rests in the sunny window until its wings gain strength to lift and bear it away.
Guest. And so you will give me the fancy of packing the butterfly back into his case?
Host. Yes, I give up all claim upon it. It is yours to have and to hold—only see that the poor fellow isn’t hurt in packing him up.