[Pg 12] [Pg 12] But Olivia was already exploring, followed by Lucy; and the old woman, with much reluctance, brought up the rear. The passage was quite dark, and very cold. The tallow dip which Mrs. Wall carried gave only just enough light to enable the explorers to find the handles of the doors on the left. One of these Olivia opened, not without difficulty; for the floor was strewn with lumber of all sorts, which the last occupier of the farm had not thought worth carrying away. The walls of this room, which was very small, were panelled right up to the low ceiling; and the panelling had been whitewashed. A second chamber in this passage was in a similar condition, except that the panelling had been torn down from two of the four walls, and its place supplied by a layer of plaster. Holding up her skirts very carefully, Olivia stepped across the dusty piles of broken boxes, damaged fireirons, and odds and ends of torn carpet with which the floor of this room also was covered, and looked through the dusty panes of the little window. “Now you’ve seen a’,” said Mrs. Wall, rather querulously. “An’ t’ lad downstairs ’ll be wanting to know wheer to put t’ things.” She was retreating with her candle, when Olivia stopped her again. “No,” she said, eagerly, “we’ve not seen all. There’s a wing of the house we have not been into at all; and I can see through the little window, on this side of it, some curtains and a flower vase with something still in it. It doesn’t look empty and deserted like the rest. I must get in there before I go down.” But Mrs. Wall’s old face had wrinkled up with superstitious terror, and it was only by force of muscle that the young girl succeeded in cutting off her retreat. “Na’,” she said, her voice sinking to a croaking whisper. “I canna tak’ ye in theer. An’—an’ t’ doors are locked, ye see,” she added, eagerly, as Olivia, still grasping her conductress’ arm, in vain tried the door at the end of the passage, and one on the left-hand side, at right angles with it. “Well, but why are they locked?” asked the young girl, impatiently, her rich-toned, youthful voice ringing sonorously through the long-disused passage. “The whole place is ours now, and I have a right to see into every corner of it.” “Oh, Miss Olivia, perhaps we’d better go back—go downstairs—for to-day,” suggested the little maid Lucy, rather
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