The Evil Genius: A Domestic Story — page 42: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE EVIL GENIUS. ol 9 ot se (Rd SO Ait iad Rg @ Fed se wp ae FIRST BOOK. CHAPTER I. MRS. PRESTY PRESENTS HERSELF. Not far from the source of the famous river which rises in the mountains between Loch Katrine and Loch Lomond, and divides the Highlands and the Lowlands of Scotland, travelers arrive at the venerable gray walls of Mount Morven; and, after consulting their guide-books, ask permission to see the house. What would be called, in a modern place of residence, the first floor, is reserved for the occupation of the family. The great hall of entrance, and its quaint old fireplace; the ancient rooms on the same level opening out of it, are freely shown to strangers. Cultivated travelers express various opinions relating to the family portraits and the elaborately carved ceilings. The uninstructed public declines to trouble itself with criticism. It looks up at the towers and the loopholes, the battlements and the rusty old guns, which still bear witness to the perils of past times when the place was a fortress—it enters the gloomy hall, walks through the stone-paved rooms, stares at the faded pictures, and wonders at the lofty chimneypieces, hopelessly out of reach. Sometimes it sits on chairs which are as cold and as hard as iron, or timidly feels the legs of immovable tables, which might be legs of elephants so far as size is concerned. When these marvels have been duly admired, and the guide-books are shut up, the emancipated tourists, emerging into light and air, all find the same social problem presented by a visit to Mount Mor- ven: ‘‘ How can the family live in such a place as that ?” If these strangers on their travels had been permitted to ascend to the first floor, and had been invited (for example) to say good- night to Mrs. Linley’s pretty little daughter, they would have seen the stone walls of Kitty’s bedchamber snugly covered with velvet hangings which kept out the cold; they would have trod on a doubly-laid carpet, which set the chilly influences of the pavement beneath it at defiance; they would have looked at a bright little bed, of the last new pattern, worthy of a child’s deeply delicious sleep; and they would only have discovered that the room was three hundred years old when they had drawn aside the window curtains, and had revealed the adamant- ine solidity of the outer walls. Or, if they had been allowed to pursue their investigations a little further, and had found their way next into Mrs. Linley’s sitting-room, here again a trans- formation scene would have revealed more modern luxury, pre- sented in the perfection which impiies restraint within the limits of good taste. COMIC OO® S (E() im