It was a very singular and fantastic old chair, said to have been brought over by the first emigrant of her race.

The legs and arms were curiously turned in spirals, the suggestions of which were half pleasing and half repulsive.

Instead of the claw-feet common in furniture of a later date, each of its legs rested on a misshapen reptile, which it seemed to flatten by its weight, as if it were squeezing the breath out of the ugly creature.

Over this chair hung the portrait of her beautiful ancestress, her neck and arms, the specialty of her beauty, bare, except for a bracelet on the left wrist, and her shapely figure set off by the ample folds of a rich crimson brocade.

Over Myrtle's bed hung that other portrait, which was to her almost as the pictures of the Mater Dolorosa to trustful souls of the Roman faith.