and woke a train of association which gave her the keenest pain. Never had the place seemed to her so gloomy; and all therein was so characteristic of its master.
It was a large vaulted apartment, and had been once a chapel: but it was now half library, half laboratory. The arches were formed of black oak, hewn into all the fantastic shapes of Gothic imaginings; in which it was singular to note that all the natural imitations were graceful, while those of humanity were hideous. The oak-leaf and the garland mingled grotesquely with the distorted faces, that ever and anon peeped from among their wreaths.
The walls were entirely hidden by bookshelves, or by cases containing rare specimens of fossil bones and reptile skeletons. Here was a grizzly crocodile, its teeth white and sharp as when they glistened in the waters of the Nile; there, a massy serpent, knotted into huge and hideous contortions; while myriads of small snakes, lizards, and disgusting insects, were stored around, with a care which had obtained for Sir Jasper Meredith, among his neighbours, the reputation of a
