It was a very dreary old house, with a lawn in front thickly sprinkled with flower-beds, and creepers of all sorts climbing in profusion about the heavy stone porch and the mullions of the lower windows.  In spite of these prettiest of all ornaments clustering brightly round the building—­in spite of the perfect repair in which it was kept from top to bottom—­there was something repellent to me in the aspect of the whole place:  a deathly stillness hung over it, which fell oppressively on my spirits.  When my companion rang the loud, deep-toned bell, the sound startled me as if we had been committing a crime in disturbing the silence.  And when the door was opened by an old female servant (while the hollow echo of the bell was still vibrating in the air), I could hardly imagine it possible that we should be let in.  We were admitted, however, without the slightest demur.  I remarked that there was the same atmosphere of dreary repose inside the house which I had already observed, or rather felt, outside it.  No dogs barked at our approach—­no doors banged in the servants’ offices—­no heads peeped over the banisters—­not one of the ordinary domestic consequences of an unexpected visit in the country met either eye or ear.  The large shadowy apartment, half library, half breakfast-room, into which we were ushered, was as solitary as the hall of entrance; unless I except such drowsy evidences of life as were here presented to us in the shape of an Angola cat and a gray parrot—­the first lying asleep in a chair, the second sitting ancient, solemn, and voiceless, in a large cage.

Mr. Garthwaite walked to the window when we entered, without saying a word.  Determining to let his taciturn humor have its way, I asked him no questions, but looked around the room to see what information it would give me (and rooms often do give such information) about the character and habits of the owner of the house.

Two tables covered with books were the first objects that attracted me.  On approaching them, I was surprised to find that the all-influencing periodical literature of the present day—­whose sphere is already almost without limit; whose readers, even in our time, may be numbered by millions—­was entirely unrepresented on Miss Welwyn’s table.  Nothing modern, nothing contemporary, in the world of books, presented itself.  Of all the volumes beneath my hand, not one bore the badge of the circulating library, or wore the flaring modern livery of gilt cloth.  Every work that I took up had been written at least fifteen or twenty years since.  The prints hanging round the walls (toward which I next looked) were all engraved from devotional subjects by the old masters; the music-stand contained no music of later date than the compositions of Haydn and Mozart.  Whatever I examined besides, told me, with the same consistency, the same strange tale.  The owner of these possessions lived in the by-gone time; lived among old recollections and old associations—­a voluntary recluse from all that was connected with the passing day.  In Miss Welwyn’s house, the stir, the tumult, the “idle business” of the world evidently appealed in vain to sympathies which grew no longer with the growing hour.