e covered with these portraits. She had never thought there
could be so many in any house. She walked slowly down this place and
stared at the faces which also seemed to stare at her. She felt as if
they were wondering what a little girl from India was doing in their
house. Some were pictures of children--little girls in thick satin
frocks which reached to their feet and stood out about them, and boys
with puffed sleeves and lace collars and long hair, or with big ruffs
around their necks. She always stopped to look at the children, and
wonder what their names were, and where they had gone, and why they wore
such odd clothes. There was a stiff, plain little girl rather like
herself. She wore a green brocade dress and held a green parrot on her
finger. Her eyes had a sharp, curious look.

"Where do you live now?" said Mary aloud to her. "I wish you were here."

Surely no other little girl ever spent such a queer morning. It seemed
as if there was no one in all the huge rambling house but her own small
self, wandering about up-stairs and down, through narrow passages and
wide ones, where it seemed to her that no one but herself had ever
walked. Since so many rooms had been built, people must have lived in
them, but it all seemed so empty that she could not quite believe it
true.

It was not until she climbed to the second floor that she thought of
turning the handle of a door. All the doors were shut, as Mrs. Medlock
had said they were, but at last she put her hand on the handle of one of
them and turned it. She was almost frightened for a moment when she felt
that it turned without difficulty and that when she pushed upon the door
itself it slowly and heavily opened. It was a massive door and opened
into a big bedroom. There were embroidered hangings on the wall, and
inlaid furniture such as she had seen in India stood about the room. A
broad window with leaded panes looked out upon the moor; and over the
mantel was another portrait of the stiff, plain little girl who seemed
to stare at her more curiously than ever.

"Perhaps she slept here once," said Mary. "She stares at me so that she
makes me feel queer."

After that she opened more doors and more. She saw so many rooms that
she became quite tired and began to think that there must be a hundred,
though she had not counted them. In all of them there were old pictures
or old tapestries with strange scenes worked on them. There were curious
pieces of furniture and