magician, though they were but the sickly fancies of a heart ill at ease, that mocked itself in its pursuits.
The ceiling had been painted with the martyrdom of some saint. Who shall place a bound to human folly, when both the inflicter and the endurer of torture have deemed that pain is acceptable in the sight of God? The tints had long since faded from the ceiling, and in the twilight nothing was discernible save two or three wild and ghastly faces, far less like "spirits of health," than "goblins damned!"
On the carpet, at the hearth, basked, in a wood-fire's heat, three enormous and black cats, the predilection for which, instead of for dogs, the usual chosen companions of country gentlemen, further increased the belief in Sir Jasper's unholy studies.
The reason given for this preference, was tinctured with the same morbid perversity that had its source in early disappointment.
"I like a cat," he would say, "because it does not disguise its selfishness with any flattering hypocrisies. Its attachment is not to yourself, but to your house. Let it but have food, and
