Chapter II.
My appointment took me, for the first time since I had been in London, to Cheyne Walk, Chelsea, in one of the most picturesque houses of which Rossetti lived.10 Entering by the fine old gateway of seventeenth century ironwork, before ascending the flight of stone steps leading to the street door, I paused for a moment to look at the house itself. A profusion of jasmine in full bloom spread over the lower part of its walls, and it gave me the impression that at one time it must have formed the central portion of a much larger and statelier mansion. A large old-fashioned knocker in the shape of a dragon adorned the street door. I found, however, it was not a very easy dragon to perform a respectable rat-tat upon, by reason of the awkwardness of its shape (I did not quite know whether to take it by its head or tail) and the stiffness in its joints which age had rendered.
On gaining admission, I was ushered into one of the prettiest, and one of the most curiously-furnished and old-fashioned sitting-rooms that it had ever been my lot to see. Mirrors of all shapes, sizes and designs, lined the
