ng."

Pisistratus.--"Very good in you, my discreet little cousin. I have no
doubt it is a ghost-trap; however, with Juba's protection, I think we
might venture together."

Pisistratus, Blanche, and Juba ascend the stairs, and turn off down
a dark passage to the left, away from the rooms in use. We reach the
arch-pointed door of oak planks nailed roughly together, we push it
open, and perceive that a small stair winds down from the room,--it is
just over Roland's chamber.

The room has a damp smell, and has probably been left open to be aired;
for the wind comes through the unbarred casement, and a billet barns on
the Hearth. The place has that attractive, fascinating air which belongs
to a lumber-room,--than which I know nothing that so captivates the
interest and fancy of young people. What treasures, to them, often
lie hid in those quaint odds and ends which the elder generations
have discarded as rubbish! All children are by nature antiquarians and
relic-hunters. Still, there is an order and precision with which the
articles in that room are stowed away that belies the true notion of
lumber,--none of the mildew and dust which give such mournful interest
to things abandoned to decay.

In one corner are piled up cases and military-looking trunks of
outlandish aspect, with R. D. C. in brass nails on their sides. From
these we turn with involuntary respect and call off Juba, who has wedged
himself behind in pursuit of some imaginary mouse. But in the other
corner is what seems to me a child's cradle,--not an English one,
evidently; it is of wood, seemingly Spanish rosewood, with a railwork at
the back, of twisted columns; and I should scarcely have known it to
be a cradle but for the fairy-like quilt and the tiny pillows, which
proclaimed its uses.

On the wall above the cradle were arranged sundry little articles that
had, perhaps, once made the joy of a child's heart,--broken toys with
the paint rubbed off, a tin sword and trumpet, and a few tattered books,
mostly in Spanish; by their shape and look, doubtless children's books.
Near these stood, on the floor, a picture with its face to the wall.
Juba had chased the mouse, that his fancy still insisted on creating,
behind this picture, and as he abruptly drew back, the picture fell
into the hands I stretched forth to receive it. I turned the face to the
light, and was surprised to see merely an old family portrait; it was
that of a gentleman in the flowered vest m