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Silas Geary led the way through the hall and thence to the winter garden. Here the display of plants was quite remarkable and the building one that had cost many thousands of pounds. Designed, as all that Richard Gessner touched, to attract the wonder of the common people and to defy the derision of the connoisseur, this immense garden had been the subject of articles innumberable and of pictures abundant. Vast in size, classic in form, it served many purposes, but chiefly as a gallery for the safe custody of a collection of Oriental china which had no rival in Europe.
"It is our patron's hobby," said the curate, mincingly, as he indicated the treasures of cloisonne and of porcelain; "he does not frivol away his money as so many do, on idle dissipations and ephemeral pleasures. On the contrary, he devotes it to the beautiful objects -- "