ok. The opened panel had
disclosed the picture of an upturned dead face, from which an obscure
figure seemed to be fleeing with outstretched arms. "How horrible!"
said Mrs. Davilow, with a look of mere disgust; but Gwendolen shuddered
silently, and Isabel, a plain and altogether inconvenient child with an
alarming memory, said--

"You will never stay in this room by yourself, Gwendolen."

"How dare you open things which were meant to be shut up, you perverse
little creature?" said Gwendolen, in her angriest tone. Then snatching
the panel out of the hand of the culprit, she closed it hastily,
saying, "There is a lock--where is the key? Let the key be found, or
else let one be made, and let nobody open it again; or rather, let the
key be brought to me."

At this command to everybody in general Gwendolen turned with a face
which was flushed in reaction from her chill shudder, and said, "Let us
go up to our own room, mamma."

The housekeeper on searching found the key in the drawer of the cabinet
close by the panel, and presently handed it to Bugle, the lady's-maid,
telling her significantly to give it to her Royal Highness.

"I don't know what you mean, Mrs. Startin," said Bugle, who had been
busy up-stairs during the scene in the drawing-room, and was rather
offended at this irony in a new servant.

"I mean the young lady that's to command us all-and well worthy for
looks and figure," replied Mrs. Startin in propitiation. "She'll know
what key it is."

"If you have laid out what we want, go and see to the others, Bugle,"
Gwendolen had said, when she and Mrs. Davilow entered their black and
yellow bedroom, where a pretty little white couch was prepared by the
side of the black and yellow catafalque known as the best bed. "I will
help mamma."

But her first movement was to go to the tall mirror between the
windows, which reflected herself and the room completely, while her
mamma sat down and also looked at the reflection.

"That is a becoming glass, Gwendolen; or is it the black and gold color
that sets you off?" said Mrs. Davilow, as Gwendolen stood obliquely
with her three-quarter face turned toward the mirror, and her left hand
brushing back the stream of hair.

"I should make a tolerable St. Cecilia with some white roses on my
head," said Gwendolen,--"only how about my nose, mamma? I think saint's
noses never in the least turn up. I wish you had given me your
perfectly straight nose; it would have done for