Yonder open drawers are full of pass-books; upon the desks and on the broad mantelpiece are piles of cheques, not scattered in disorder but arranged in exact heaps.

Opposite her, above the crowded mantelpiece and surmounted by a raffia wreath, the enlarged-crayon gaze of her deceased maternal grandfather, abetted by a horrible device of photography, followed her, his eyes focusing the entire room at a glance.

Only with the coming of smaller fireplaces came those elaborate mantelpieces.

At one end stands a great fireplace, with a florid, fantastic mantelpiece in carved white marblean importation, of course, and, as one may say, an interpolation; the groundwork of the house, the "fixtures," being throughout plain, solid and domestic.

It had still some remains of carved panelling, a graceful mantelpiece of Italian design, and a painted ceiling half-effaced.

Jes' plant a good old watermelon-vine; an' when she gits ripe, you come dar, an' don't you eat it, but jes' bus' it on de grave, an' let de good old juice dribble down thro' de ground!" "That's rather a handsome mantelpiece you have there, Mr. Binkston," said the visitor.

There was the same high mantelpiece, rather less narrow, and the same little cupboard let into the massive chimney.

At your left is the ponderous mantelpiece, supported by two spiral stone pillars; and close to the door at the right was the bed in which the two crones had just stretched poor Philip Feltram, who lay as still as an uncoloured wax-work, with a heavy penny-piece on each eye, and a bandage under his jaw, making his mouth look stern.

Women are as clever as Napoleon or Julius Caesar in selecting strong positions when there is to be an encounter, and a fireplace, with a solid mantelpiece to lean against, to strike, to cry upon or to cling to, is one of the strongest.

Over the tall mantelpiece there were crossed two untarnished swords which had been worn by the judge's father in the Revolution.

And then that terrible mute dining-room, with the high, unscalable mantelpieces that no midget could ever reach!