exhibiting, here and there, patches of colour not yet entirely faded,—is decidedly Italian.

   Of this apartment, the crone can tell us nothing. She never recollects it inhabited. We undo the huge shutters for ourselves, and bring down a cloud of dust and cobwebs.

   The rays of light, bursting violently, as it were, into the darkness—become—after once passing the square panes, or where there are no panes, the framework—suddenly impure, and in need of a patent filter before they are fit for use.

   Chilvern admires the proportions, and asks what we'll make, of this room?

   A pause.

    Happy Thought.

   —A Theatre. Nothing more evident; nothing easier.

   I notice that both Boodels and Milburd catch at this idea.

   From which I fancy, knowing from experience Boodels' turn for poetry, that they have got, ready for production, what they will call, “little things of their own that they've just knocked off.”

   Almost wish I hadn't suggested it. But if they've got something to act,

    so have I

   . If they do

    theirs

   , they must let mine be done.

   Settled, that it is to be a theatre.

   Odd that no one part of the house seems finished. Saxons started it; Normans got tired of it; Tudors touched it up; Annians added to it.

    Happy Thought.

   —(

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