It had been his home for some ten years.

He lived as a man of small but sufficient means, amid very plain household furniture, and with no sort of social pretence.
With him dwelt his wife, and one maidservant.
On an evening of midsummer, still and sunny, the old man sat among his books; open before him the great poem of Dante.

His much-lined face, austere in habitual expression, yet with infinite possibilities of radiance in the dark eyes, of tenderness on the mobile lips, was crowned with hair which had turned iron-grey but remained wonderfully thick and strong; the moustache and beard, only a slight growth, were perfectly white.

He had once been of more than average stature; now his bent shoulders and meagre limbs gave him an appearance of shortness, whilst he suffered on the score of dignity by an excessive disregard of his clothing.

He sat in a round-backed wooden chair at an ordinary table, on which were several volumes ranked on end, a large blotter, and an inkstand.