tions of wall
and passages were left behind, and the plain lath-and-plaster partition
of the attic lay before him. He unlocked the door, and threw it open.

CHAPTER V

The apartment he entered was really only a lumber-room or loft over the
wing of the house, which had been left bare and unfinished, and which
revealed in its meagre skeleton of beams and joints the hollow sham of
the whole structure. But in more violent contrast to the fresher
glories of the other part of the house were its contents, which were
the heterogeneous collection of old furniture, old luggage, and
cast-off clothing, left over from the past life in the old cabin. It
was a much plainer record of the simple beginnings of the family than
Mrs. Mulrady cared to have remain in evidence, and for that reason it
had been relegated to the hidden recesses of the new house, in the hope
that it might absorb or digest it. There were old cribs, in which the
infant limbs of Mamie and Abner had been tucked up; old
looking-glasses, that had reflected their shining, soapy faces, and
Mamie's best chip Sunday hat; an old sewing-machine, that had been worn
out in active service; old patchwork quilts; an old accordion, to whose
long drawn inspirations Mamie had sung hymns; old pictures, books, and
old toys. There were one or two old chromos, and, stuck in an old
frame, a colored print from the "Illustrated London News" of a
Christmas gathering in an old English country house. He stopped and
picked up this print, which he had often seen before, gazing at it with
a new and singular interest. He wondered if Mamie had seen anything of
this kind in England, and why couldn't he have had something like it
here, in their own fine house, with themselves and a few friends? He
remembered a past Christmas, when he had bought Mamie that now headless
doll with the few coins that were left him after buying their frugal
Christmas dinner. There was an old spotted hobby-horse that another
Christmas had brought to Abner--Abner, who would be driving a fast
trotter to-morrow at the Springs! How everything had changed! How
they all had got up in the world, and how far beyond this kind of
thing--and yet--yet it would have been rather comfortable to have all
been together again here. Would THEY have been more comfortable? No!
Yet then he might have had something to do, and been less lonely
to-morrow. What of that? He HAD something to do: to look after this
immense fortune.