Virgin and Child, protected by glass, and bearing Raphael's name
on the gilt tablet at the bottom of the frame. On my right hand
and on my left, as I stood inside the door, were chiffoniers and
little stands in buhl and marquetterie, loaded with figures in
Dresden china, with rare vases, ivory ornaments, and toys and
curiosities that sparkled at all points with gold, silver, and
precious stones. At the lower end of the room, opposite to me,
the windows were concealed and the sunlight was tempered by large
blinds of the same pale sea-green colour as the curtains over the
door. The light thus produced was deliciously soft, mysterious,
and subdued; it fell equally upon all the objects in the room; it
helped to intensify the deep silence, and the air of profound
seclusion that possessed the place; and it surrounded, with an
appropriate halo of repose, the solitary figure of the master of
the house, leaning back, listlessly composed, in a large easy-
chair, with a reading-easel fastened on one of its arms, and a
little table on the other.

If a man's personal appearance, when he is out of his dressing-
room, and when he has passed forty, can be accepted as a safe
guide to his time of life--which is more than doubtful--Mr.
Fairlie's age, when I saw him, might have been reasonably computed
at over fifty and under sixty years. His beardless face was thin,
worn, and transparently pale, but not wrinkled; his nose was high
and hooked; his eyes were of a dim greyish blue, large, prominent,
and rather red round the rims of the eyelids; his hair was scanty,
soft to look at, and of that light sandy colour which is the last
to disclose its own changes towards grey. He was dressed in a
dark frock-coat, of some substance much thinner than cloth, and in
waistcoat and trousers of spotless white. His feet were