effeminately small, and were clad in buff-coloured silk stockings,
and little womanish bronze-leather slippers. Two rings adorned
his white delicate hands, the value of which even my inexperienced
observation detected to be all but priceless. Upon the whole, he
had a frail, languidly-fretful, over-refined look--something
singularly and unpleasantly delicate in its association with a
man, and, at the same time, something which could by no
possibility have looked natural and appropriate if it had been
transferred to the personal appearance of a woman. My morning's
experience of Miss Halcombe had predisposed me to be pleased with
everybody in the house; but my sympathies shut themselves up
resolutely at the first sight of Mr. Fairlie.

On approaching nearer to him, I discovered that he was not so
entirely without occupation as I had at first supposed. Placed
amid the other rare and beautiful objects on a large round table
near him, was a dwarf cabinet in ebony and silver, containing
coins of all shapes and sizes, set out in little drawers lined
with dark purple velvet. One of these drawers lay on the small
table attached to his chair; and near it were some tiny jeweller's
brushes, a wash-leather "stump," and a little bottle of liquid,
all waiting to be used in various ways for the removal of any
accidental impurities which might be discovered on the coins. His
frail white fingers were listlessly toying with something which
looked, to my uninstructed eyes, like a dirty pewter medal with
ragged edges, when I advanced within a respectful distance of his
chair, and stopped to make my bow.

"So glad to possess you at Limmeridge, Mr. Hartright," he said in
a querulous, croaking voice, which combined, in anything but an