smiles. From
narrow, painted windows great gleams of sunset from the gay world
without pour in, only to look sadly out of place in the solemn gloomy
room. But one small door divides it from the halls outside; yet
centuries seem to roll between it and them.

In one corner a door lies half open, and behind it a narrow flight of
stairs runs upward to a turret chamber above,--a tiny stairway,
heavily balustraded and uncarpeted, that creates in one a mad desire
to ascend and learn the secrets that may lie at its top.

Miss Peyton, scarce noticing the monkish refectory, runs to the stairs
and mounts them eagerly, Sir James following her in a more leisurely
fashion.

"Now for my own room," she says, with some degree of quickness in her
tone. She reaches the turret chamber as she speaks, and looks around
her. It is quite a circle, and apparently of the same date as the one
they have just quitted. Even the furniture, though of lighter make and
size, is of a similar age and pattern. Ugly little chairs and
unpleasantly solid tables are dotted here and there, a perfect wealth
of Old-World work cut into them. Everything is carved, and to an
unsympathetic observer it might occur that the carver must have been a
person subject to fiendish visions and unholy nightmares. But no doubt
the beauty of his designs lies in their ugliness, and his heads are a
marvel of art, and his winged creatures priceless!

The high chimney-piece is _en rapport_ with all the rest, and scowls
unceasingly; and the very windows--long and deep--have little faces
carved on either side of them, of the most diabolical.

Miss Peyton is plainly entranced with the whole scene, and for a full
minute says nothing.

"I feel as though I were a child again," she says, presently, as
though half regretful. "Everything comes back to me with such a
strange yet tender vividness. This, I remember, was my favorite table,
this my favorite chair. And that little winged monster over there, he
used to whisper in my ears more thrilling tales than either Grimm or
Andersen. Have you never moved anything in all these years?"

"Never. It is your own room by adoption, and no one shall meddle with
it. When I went abroad I locked it, and carried the key of it with me
wherever I went; I hardly know why myself." He glances at her
curiously, but her face is averted, and she is plainly thinking less
of him than of the many odd trifles scattered around. "When I
returned, dust reigned,