THE HAUNTED LIBRARY. 389 



and long, had a carved mantel-piece and a window of painted 

 glass, 



" All diamonded with panes of quaint device," 



and it was said, moreover, to be haunted, not alone by the 

 Muses, but by the restless spirit of a poet, who, in the days 

 of his premature decline, had sat there, hour after hour, 

 " spinning " from the threads of thought a " cell " or a shroud 

 for enwrapment of his own " decaying form/' till Death, in 

 that very chamber, struck and turned that form into a shadow. 

 My uncle, however, was no man of a mind to fear shadows, 

 and he had (to Mrs. Dove's wonderment) been accustomed 

 at all hours to sit there amused by his desultory studies, in 

 a tapestried arm-chair, said to be the very seat the poet died 

 in. After his misfortune he sat there more than ever ; lost 

 himself, and losing time, in apathetic musing. In the gloom 

 that had come over him, even his favourite insects ceased to 

 interest him. He cared not for the chrysalidan treasures 

 which, while winter lasted, I worked indefatigably with my 

 digger to exhume. He looked with equal indifference on the 

 first " twenty-plume '' which was seen in February on the 

 window, and the first brimstone butterfly that made its appear- 

 ance in the garden. In March, when the first hunting spiders 

 were visible on the sunny walls, and the first satin mites 

 showed their scarlet doublets on the ground, they were seen 

 not at all, or with the same regardless eye. And even when 

 Lucy and I got him out into the woods, and the first orange - 



2 A 2 



