for a long time all rumination on the characters of dames gone to
dust for scores of years, however beautiful and noble they may have
been in their day. 

The last member at length departed, the attendant at the museum
lowered the fire, the curator locked up the rooms, and soon there
was only a single pirouetting flame on the top of a single coal to
make the bones of the ichthyosaurus seem to leap, the stuffed birds
to wink, and to draw a smile from the varnished skulls of
Vespasian's soldiery. 

End of the Project Gutenberg eText A Group of Noble Dames