John Brown stood upon her writing-table in solid gold.

Her favourite horses and dogs, endowed with a new durability, crowded round her footsteps.

Sharp, in silver gilt, dominated the dinner table; Boy and Boz lay together among unfading flowers, in bronze.

And it was not enough that each particle of the past should be given the stability of metal or of marble: the whole collection, in its arrangement, no less than its entity, should be immutably fixed.

There might be additions, but there might never be alterations.