Staring contentedly at a large monumental landscape by Gainsborough, where what might have been called the spiritual idea of a Country Road lost itself between avenues of park-like trees and vistas of mysterious terrace-walks, Wolf began to experience, as he sipped his port wine and listened to his host’s mellow discourse, a more delicious sense of actual physical well-being than he had known for many a long year.

He soon discovered that he was to labour at his particular share of their grandiose enterprise in a window-seat of the big library of the house, while Mr. Urquhart pursued independent researches in a room he called “the study.” This was excellent news to the new secretary. Very vividly he conjured up an image of that window-seat, ensconced behind mullion-panes of armorial glass, and opening upon an umbrageous vista resembling that picture by Gainsborough!