" "But why do you not paper the room," asked Etta, with a shiver, "instead of this gloomy panelling?

Carved oak panelling has replaced the old arras and ruder wood lining of an earlier time, and with the departure of the old feudal customs and the indulgence in greater luxuries of the more wealthy nobles and merchants in Italy, Flanders, France, Germany, Spain, and England, we have the elegancies and grace with which Art, and increased means of gratifying taste, enabled the sixteenth century virtuoso to adorn his home.

Once he had followed, and stood amazed to see it vanish through the carven panelling, though door could he find none.

All the rooms have their colonial panelling, deep window-seats, and open fireplaces.

Internally Buonarroti altered its decorative panellings, and elevated the vaulting of the roof into a more ambitious cupola.

It contained the objects I have describedthe marble panelling, the altar with its candelabra, the statues of the Dukes and their attendant figures, the Madonna and two Medicean patron saintsin fact, all that we find there now, with the addition of Giovanni da Udine's frescoes in the cupola, the relics of which have since been buried under cold Florentine whitewash.

The trite proverb that "walls have ears" was perhaps never more fully exemplified than when applied to those of the Louvre at that period; many of them, and those all connected with the more public apartments, being composed of double panelling, between which a sufficient space had been left to admit of the passage of an eavesdropper, and the closet in question chanced to be one of these convenient lurking-places.

Terminal figures, fluted columns, panels broken up into smaller divisions, and carved enrichments of various devices, are all combined in a harmonious design, rich without being overcrowded, and its effect is enhanced by the rich color given to it by age, by the excellent proportions of the Hall, by the plain panelling of the three other sides, and above all by the grand oak roof, which is certainly one of the finest of its kind in England.

The façade presented a problem of pure panelling.

The paint and graining, which had disfigured its mighty beams and solid panelling, had been removed; and the freshly polished oak shone forth in its noble age, shorn of all tawdry disguise.

Up quaint staircases in the wings we went to the roomy bedrooms with their ivy-cased windows, mellow-toned panelling, and old open fireplaces.

The triple panelling to the tower arch and the reduplication of the chancel arch is a little peculiar.

The octagon, which connects so finely the tower and spire, has four two-light windows on the cardinal sides, the other sides having blank panelling of similar design.

The walls, for a height of ten feet, are covered with wooden panelling, painted with arabesque devices in the gayest colors, and along the top there is a series of Arabic inscriptions in gold.