The collection of old masters at Crompton was varied and valuable; he could have spent hours among them with infinite pleasure, if the intoxicating thought that they all might be one day his own had not been present to mar their charms.

He regarded them less as an admiring disciple, or a connoisseur, than as an appraiser.

The homely life-scenes of Jan Stein, the saintly creations of Paul Veronese, the warmth of Rubens, and the stateliness of Vandyck, were all measured by one standard--that of price.

The contents of this one room alone, thought he, "represent no moderate fortune." When his eye strayed to the tall windows, and rested on the wooded acres which owned in mad Carew a nominal master, the beauty of dale and upland touched him not at all.

"I wonder now," sighed he, "how much of this is dipped ?" It was a good sign, he thought, that in one room he found a cabinet containing no less than fifty antique cameos; for, if the pressure of pecuniary difficulty had really begun to be severe, the Squire would surely have parted with what must have been in his view useless lumber, and was so easily convertible into cash.