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wore jewelled gloves reaching to the elbow, and had a hawk-glove

sewn with twelve rubies and fifty-two great orients. The ducal

hat of Charles the Rash, the last Duke of Burgundy of his race,

was hung with pear-shaped pearls and studded with sapphires.

How exquisite life had once been! How gorgeous in its pomp and

decoration! Even to read of the luxury of the dead was wonderful.

Then he turned his attention to embroideries and to the

tapestries that performed the office of frescoes in the chill

rooms of the northern nations of Europe. As he investigated the

subject-and he always had an extraordinary faculty of becoming

absolutely absorbed for the moment in whatever he took up-he was

almost saddened by the reflection of the ruin that time brought

on beautiful and wonderful things. He, at any rate, had escaped

that. Summer followed summer, and the yellow jonquils bloomed and

died many times, and nights of horror repeated the story of their

shame, but he was unchanged. No winter marred his face or stained

his flowerlike bloom. How different it was with material things!

Where had they passed to? Where was the great crocus-coloured

robe, on which the gods fought against the giants, that had been

worked by brown girls for the pleasure of Athena?