also had escaped the dismantling of the rest of the house, but it contained very little that would have been worth taking away. It was lighted by three small windows, all much broken, and all hung with limp rags which had once been muslin curtains, gaily tied up with blue ribbons, which were now almost colorless with dust and damp. The floor was covered with matting, which smelt like damp straw, and had evidently afforded many a meal to the rats now scurrying behind the woodwork, which in this room was much decayed and in far from good repair. A plain deal table, from which the cover had been removed; two limp wicker chairs with ragged cushions; an empty birdcage; a fanciful wicker kennel for a lapdog; these were nearly all that were left of the furniture. Olivia inspected everything with eager but silent interest, and then turned suddenly to Sarah Wall, who had again followed them as far as the door, preferring even the eerie passage of the bedroom to solitude outside.

“Who lived in these rooms last?” she asked.

But the candle nearly fell from Mrs. Wall’s hand as, for all answer, she withdrew into the desolation of the deserted bedroom rather than face the eager questioner again.

Olivia was not to be put off so easily. She followed precipitately, and, changing the form of her attack, said—

“How long is it since these rooms were shut up, Mrs. Wall?”

The guide’s eyes shifted about, refusing to meet those of the young girl.

“Twea year’; same as rest o’ t’ house,” she answered, in a grumbling tone.

“Only two years! It wasn’t shut up long before the family went away, then?” said Olivia, incredulously.

“Not as Ah knaws on,” answered Sarah Wall.

Miss Denison hated an untruth with the impetuous loathing of an honest nature. She would have liked to shake this wretched old woman, who would not be candid on a subject which could not be of the slightest importance to her. Perhaps her companion got an inkling of this inclination, for she turned and beat a hasty retreat along the narrow passage which led from the bedroom to the body of the house. Olivia did not at once follow her. With a curious reluctance, whether reverence for a dead past whose relics she was disturbing, or fear of some shock which its revelations might bring her, she scarcely 

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