Then the queen confers the honor of knighthood, not upon
the young man, but upon the owner of the telescope. Sir James South was
knighted for this reason.
"We have been visiting Hartwell House, an old baronial residence, now
the property of Dr. Lee, a whimsical old man.
"This house was for years the residence of Louis XVIII., and his queen
died here. The drawing-room is still kept as in those days; the blue
damask on the walls has been changed by time to a brown. The rooms are
spacious and lofty, the chimney-pieces of richly carved marble. The
ceiling of one room has fine bas-relief allegorical figures.
"Books of antiquarian value are all around--one whole floor is covered
with them. They are almost never opened. In some of the rooms paintings
are on the walls above the doors.
"Dr. Lee's modern additions are mostly paintings of himself and a former
wife, and are in very bad taste. He has, however, two busts of Mrs.
Somerville, from which I received the impression that she is handsome,
but Mrs. Smyth tells me she is not so; certainly she is sculpturesque.
"The royal family, on their retreat from Hartwell House, left their
prayer-book, and it still remains on its stand. The room of the ladies
of the bedchamber is papered, and the figure of a pheasant is the
prevailing characteristic of the paper. The room is called 'The Pheasant
Room.' One of the birds has been carefully cut out, and, it is said, was
carried away as a memento by one of the damsels.
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