Fashionable purchasers crowded round the table, vieing with each other in artistic and critical comparisons between the Giottoesque Nativities and Annunciations.

Into this atmosphere of mustiness and antiquity the ladies brought the perfume of their furs, and more especially of the violets which each one wore on her muff, according to the then prevailing charming fashion, and their presence diffused a delicious air of warmth and fragrance.

Outside, the rain continued to fall, and the light to fade.

Here and there a little flame of gas struggled feebly with such daylight as remained.
'Going--going--gone!' The stroke of the hammer put Lord Humphrey Heathfield in possession of the Florentine helmet.

The bidding then began for smaller articles, which passed in turn from hand to hand down the long table.