Her gaze was buried deep in the flames.  And how sweet her face was, how inexpressibly at peace.  She had folded the wings of her whole life, and sat by the hearth as still as a brooding dove.  No past laid its disturbing touch upon her shoulder.  Instead, I could see that if there were any flight of her mind away from the present it was into the future—­a slow, tranquil flight across the years, with all the happiness that they must bring.  As I set my own thoughts to journey after hers, suddenly the scene in the room changed, and I beheld Georgiana as an old, old lady, with locks of silver on her temples, spectacles, a tiny sock stuck through with needles on her knee, and her face finely wrinkled, but still blooming with unconquerable gayety and youth.

“How sweet that smoke is, Georgiana,” I said, rousing us both, and feeling sure that she will understand me in whatsoever figure I may speak.  “And how much we are wasting when we change this old oak back into his elements—­smoke and light, heat and ashes.  What a magnificent work he was on natural history, requiring hundreds of years for his preparation and completion, written in a language so learned that not the wisest can read him wisely, and enduringly bound in the finest of tree calf!  It is a dishonor to speak of him as a work.  He was a doctor of philosophy!  He should have been a college professor!  Think how he could have used his own feet for a series of lectures on the laws of equilibrium, capillary attraction, or soils and moisture!  Was there ever a head that knew as much as his about the action of light?  Did any human being ever more grandly bear the burdens of life or better face the tempests of the world?  What did he not know about birds?  He had carried them in his arms and nurtured them in his bosom for a thousand years.  Even his old coat, with all its rents and patches—­what roll of papyrus was ever so crowded with the secrets of knowledge?  The august antiquarian!  The old king!  Can you imagine a funeral urn too noble for his ashes?  But to what base uses, Georgiana!  He will not keep the wind away any longer; we shall change him into a kettle of lye with which to whiten our floors.”

What Georgiana’s reply could have been I do not know, for at that moment Mrs. Walters flitted in.

“I saw through the windows that you had a fire,” she said, volubly, “and ran over to get warm.  And, oh! yes, I wanted to tell you—­”

“Stop, please, Mrs. Walters!” I cried, starting towards her with an outstretched hand and a warning laugh.  “You have not yet been formally introduced to this room, and a formal introduction is necessary.  You must be made acquainted with the primary law of its being;” and as Mrs. Walters paused, dropping her hands into her lap and regarding me with an air of mystification, I went on: 

“When I had repairs made in my house last summer, I had this fireplace rebuilt, and I ordered an inscription to be burnt into the bricks.  We expect to ask that all our guests will kindly notice this inscription, in order to avoid accidents or misunderstandings.  So I beg of you not to speak until you have read the words over the fireplace.”