There was a certain air of arrogance about it, as it stood there in that blaze of light, its inlay aglow with a thousand subtle reflections; a flaunting air, the air of a courtesan conscious of her beauty and pleased to attract attentionjust the air with which Madame de Montespan must have sauntered down the mirror gallery at Versailles, ablaze with jewels, her skirts rustling, her figure swaying suggestively.

"Well, there it is," I said, and nodded toward the Boule cabinet, standing in the full glare of the light, every inlay and incrustation glittering like the eyes of a basilisk.

Once I thought he had found the drawer, for a piece of inlay at the side of the table seemed to give a little under the pressure of his fingers; but no hidden spring was touched; no drawer sprang open; no poisoned fangs descended.

But to discover the combination...." He ran his fingers over the inlay, and then, struck by a sudden thought, tested each of the little figures along the tympanum, but they were all set solidly in place.

The veiled lady bent above the table and disposed the fingers of her right hand to fit the metal inlay midway of the left side.

" There was a sharp click, and, at the side of the table, a piece of the metal inlay fell forward.

" It was standing open as we had left it, and Godfrey pushed it back into place, called my attention to the cunning way in which its outline was concealed by the inlay about it.

Most secret drawers are secret only in name; a slight search reveals them; but this one...." He pushed it shut again, and examined the inlay around it.

hear my fervent sighs, Bear on broad wings your Votress to the skies!" Plume over plume in long divergent lines 20 On whale-bone ribs the fair Mechanic joins; Inlays with eider down the silken strings, And weaves in wide expanse Dædalian wings; Round her bold sons the waving pennons binds, And walks with angel-step upon the winds.

Inlays the broider'd weft with flowery dyes, 70 Quick beat the reeds, the pedals fall and rise; Slow from the beam the lengths of warp unwind, And dance and nod the massy weights behind.

395 High o'er her couch impending diamonds blaze, And branching gold the crystal roof inlays; With verdant light the modest emeralds glow, Blue sapphires glare, and rubies blush, below; Light piers of lazuli the dome surround, 400

For half an hour, there filed through the vulgar atmosphere of this salon, images of enormous pagodas with superimposed roofs whose strings of bells vibrated in the breeze like an Aeolian harp, monstrous idolscarved in gold, in bronze, or in marble-houses made of paper, thrones of bamboo, furniture with mother-of-pearl inlay, screens with flocks of flying storks.

In the warm May afternoon pigeons tumbled about near-by church spires which cut brown inlays into the soft blue sky.

A bedstead, with inlay of ivory and numerous small squares of glass, under which are paper flowers, is also a good example of native work.

The shape and the gilt mounts of a secretaire of walnutwood with inlay of ebony and ivory, and some other furniture which, with the other specimens just described, may be seen in the Bethnal Green Museum, all manifest the influence of the French school, when the bombe-fronted commodes and curved lines of chair and table came into fashion.

The sideboard had a straight and not infrequently a serpentine-shaped front, with square tapering legs, and was surmounted by a pair of urn-shaped knife cases, the wood used being almost invariably mahogany, with the inlay generally of plain flutings relieved by fans or oval pateroe in satin wood.

Upon examining a piece of furniture that may reasonably be ascribed to him, it will be found of excellent workmanship, and the wood, always mahogany without any inlay, is richly marked, shewing a careful selection of material.

[Illustration: A Sideboard in Mahogany with Inlay of Satinwood.

In furniture for these apartments the less inlay of other woods, the more chaste will be the style of work.

Where it may be requisite to make out panelling by an inlay of lines, let those lines be of brass or ebony.

In drawing-rooms, boudoirs, ante-rooms, East and West India satin woods, rosewood, tulip wood, and the other varieties of woods brought from the East, may be used; with satin and light coloured woods the decorations may be of ebony or rosewood; with rosewood let the decorations be ormolu, and the inlay of brass.

" [Illustration: "Parlor Chairs," Shewing the Inlay of Brass referred to.

[Illustration: Cabinet in Satinwood, With Wedgwood plaques and inlay of various woods in the Adams' style.

Partly on account of the difficulty in obtaining the richly-marked and figured old mahogany and satin-wood of a hundred years ago, which needed little or no inlay as ornament, and partly to meet the public fancy by covering up bad construction with veneers of marquetry decoration, a great deal more inlay has been given to these reproductions than ever appeared in the original work of the eighteenth century cabinet makers.

Partly on account of the difficulty in obtaining the richly-marked and figured old mahogany and satin-wood of a hundred years ago, which needed little or no inlay as ornament, and partly to meet the public fancy by covering up bad construction with veneers of marquetry decoration, a great deal more inlay has been given to these reproductions than ever appeared in the original work of the eighteenth century cabinet makers.