On the writing-table were piles of paper-covered French books, representing for the most part the palmy days of the Romantics, though every here and there were intervening strata of naturalism, balanced in their turn by recurrent volumes of Sainte-Beuve.

The whole had a studious air.

The books were evidently collected with a purpose, and the piles of orderly MSS.

lying on the writing-table seemed to sum up and explain their surroundings.
The only personal ornament of the room was a group of photographs on the mantelpiece.

Two were faded and brown, and represented Kendal's parents, both of whom had been dead some years.