MRS.

PALLINSON HAS VIEWS.
At seven o'clock on Sunday evening, as the neighbouring church bells were just sounding their last peal, Mr.Fenton found himself on the threshold of Mrs.Branston's house in Cavendish-square.

It was rather a gloomy mansion, pervaded throughout with evidences of its late owner's oriental career; old Indian cabinets; ponderous chairs of elaborately-carved ebony, clumsy in form and barbaric in design; curious old china and lacquered ware of every kind, from gigantic vases to the tiniest cups and saucers; ivory temples, and gods in silver and clay, crowded the drawing-rooms and the broad landings on the staircase.

The curtains and chair-covers were of Indian embroidery; the carpets of oriental manufacture.

Everything had a gaudy semi-barbarous aspect.
Mrs.Branston received her guests in the back drawing-room, a smaller and somewhat snugger apartment than the spacious chamber in front, which was dimly visible in the light of a single moderator lamp and the red glow of a fire through the wide-open archway between the two rooms.