y.

A good fire, that kind and trusty face, the peep I had just indulged in at
my favourite paragraph, and the certainty of soon seeing my dear cousin
Monica, and afterwards affectionate Milly, raised my spirits.

'So,' said I, 'as old Wyat, you say, is laid up with rheumatism, and can't
turn up to scold me, I think I'll run up stairs and make an exploration,
and find poor Mr. Charke's skeleton in a closet.'

'Oh, law, Miss Maud, how can you say such things!' exclaimed good old
Quince, lifting up her honest grey head and round eyes from her knitting.

I had grown so familiar with the frightful tradition of Mr. Charke and his
suicide, that I could now afford to frighten old Quince with him.

'I am quite serious. I am going to have a ramble up-stairs and down-stairs,
like goosey-goosey-gander; and if I do light upon his chamber, it is all
the more interesting. I feel so like Adelaide, in the "Romance of the
Forest," the book I was reading to you last night, when she commenced her
delightful rambles through the interminable ruined abbey in the forest.'

'Shall I go with you, Miss?'

'No, Quince; stay there; keep a good fire, and make some tea. I suspect I
shall lose heart and return very soon;' and with a shawl about me, cowl
fashion, over my head, I stole up-stairs.

I shall not recount with the particularity of the conscientious heroine of
Mrs. Ann Radcliffe, all the suites of apartments, corridors, and lobbies,
which I threaded in my ramble. It will be enough to mention that I lighted
upon a door at the end of a long gallery, which, I think, ran parallel with
the front of the house; it interested me because it had the air of having
been very long undisturbed. There were two rusty bolts, which did not
evidently belong to its original securities, and had been, though very long
ago, somewhat clumsily superadded. Dusty and rusty they were, but I had no
difficulty in drawing them back. There was a rusty key, I remember it well,
with a crooked handle in the lock; I tried to turn it, but could not.
My curiosity was piqued. I was thinking of going back and getting Mary
Quince's assistance. It struck me, however, that possibly it was not
locked, so I pulled the door and it opened quite easily. I did not find
myself in a strangely-furnished suite of apartments, but at the entrance
of a gallery, which diverged at right angles from that through which I had
just passed; it was very imperfectly lighted, and ended in total darkn