She saw a room of medium size, which from the end of the sixteenth century had been known as the Red Drawing Room--a room panelled in stamped Cordovan leather, and filled with rare and beautiful things; with ebony cabinets, and fine lacquer; with the rarest of oriental carpets, with carved chairs, and luxurious sofas.

Set here and there, sparingly, among the shadows, as though in scorn of any vulgar profusion, the eye caught the gleam of old silver, or rock crystal, or agate; _bibelots_ collected a hundred and fifty years ago by a Gaddesden of taste, and still in their original places.

Overhead, the uneven stucco ceiling showed a pattern of Tudor roses; opposite to Mrs.
Gaddesden the wall was divided between a round mirror, in whose depths she saw herself reflected and a fine Holbein portrait of a man, in a flat velvet hat on a green background.

Over the carved mantelpiece with its date of 1586, there reigned a Romney portrait--one of the most famous in existence--of a young girl in black.

Elizabeth Merton bore a curious resemblance to it.