All other details were, however, most satisfactory; and at the
window commanding the road that leads through the valley towards
the distant world I settled down to face my work.
But the spirit of industry, once driven forth, returns with coy
steps. I wrote for perhaps an hour, and then throwing down my
halting pen I looked about the room, seeking distraction. A
Chippendale book-case stood against the wall and I strolled over to
it. The key was in the lock, and opening its glass doors, I
examined the well-filled shelves. They held a curious collection:
miscellanies with quaint, glazed bindings; novels and poems; whose
authors I had never heard of; old magazines long dead, their very
names forgotten; "keepsakes" and annuals, redolent of an age of
vastly pretty sentiments and lavender-coloured silks. On the top
shelf, however, was a volume of Keats wedged between a number of
the Evangelical Rambler and Young's Night Thoughts, and standing on
tip-toe, I sought to draw it from its place.
The book was jambed so tightly that my efforts brought two or three
others tumbling about me, covering me with a cloud of fine dust,
and to my feet there fell, with a rattle of glass and metal, a
small miniature painting, framed in black wood.
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