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 entrapment 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 him- 

 self, and losing time, in apathetic musing. In the gloom that 

 had come over him, even his favourite insects ceased to inter- 

 est 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 

 u twenty-plume " which was seen in February on the window, 

 and the first brimstone butterfly that made its appearance 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-tip flew 

 VOL. III. 24. 



