RLOR

The lower hall did not correspond exactly with the one above. It was
larger, and through its connection with the front door, presented the
shape of a letter T--that is, to the superficial observer who was not
acquainted with the size of the house and had not had the opportunity of
remarking that at the extremities of the upper hall making this T, were
two imposing doors usually found shut except at meal-times, when the
left-hand one was thrown open, disclosing a long and dismal corridor
similar to the ones above. Half-way down this corridor was the
dining-room, into which I had now been taken three times.

The right-hand one, I had no doubt, led the way into the great
drawing-room or dancing-hall which I had started out to see.

Proceeding first to the front of the house, where some glimmer of light
penetrated from the open sitting-room door, I looked the keys over and
read what was written on the several tags attached to them. They were
seven in number, and bore some such names as these: "Blue Chamber,"
"Library," "Flower Parlor," "Shell Cabinet," "Dark Parlor"--all of which
was very suggestive, and, to an antiquarian like myself, most alluring.

But it was upon a key marked "A" I first fixed my attention. This, I had
been told, would open the large door at the extremity of the upper hall,
and when I made a trial with it I found it to move easily, though
somewhat gratingly, in the lock, releasing the great doors, which in
another moment swung inward with a growling sound which might have been
startling to a nervous person filled with the legends of the place.

But in me the only emotion awakened was one of disgust at the nauseous
character of the air which instantly enveloped me. Had I wished for any
further proof than was afforded by the warning given me by the condition
of the hinges, that the foot of man had not lately invaded these
precincts, I would have had it in the mouldy atmosphere and smell of
dust that greeted me on the threshold. Neither human breath nor a ray of
outdoor sunshine seemed to have disturbed its gloomy quiet for years,
and when I moved, as I presently did, to open one of the windows I dimly
discerned at my right, I felt such a movement of something foul and
noisome amid the decaying rags of the carpet through which I was
stumbling that I had to call into use the stronger elements of my
character not to back out of a place so given over to rot and the
creatures that infest it.

"Wh