"No; I think not."

"Then begin with the furniture, if you have
no better plan to propose. I am but a helpless
adviser at such a crisis as this: I must
leave the responsibilities of decision, after all
to rest on your shoulders. Yours are the
eyes that look, and the hands that search:
and, if the secret of Mrs. Jazeph's reason for
warning you against entering this room, is to
be found by seeking in the room, you wil
find it——"

"And you will know it, Lenny, as soon as
it is found. I won't hear you talk, love, as
if there was any difference between us, or any
superiority in my position over yours. Now
let me see. What shall I begin with? The
tall bookcase opposite the window? or the
dingy old writing-table, in the recess behind
the fire-place? Those are the two largest
pieces of furniture that I can see in the
room."

"Begin with the book-case, my dear, as
you seem to have noticed that first."

Rosamond advanced a few steps towards
the book-case—then stopped, and looked
aside suddenly to the lower end of the
room.

"Lenny! I forgot one thing, when I was
telling you about the walls," she said. "There
are two doors in the room besides the door
we came in at. They are both in the wall
to the right, as I stand now with my back to
the window. Each is at the same distance
from the corner, and each is of the same size
and appearance. Don't you think we ought
to open them, and see where they lead to?"

"Certainly. But are the keys in the
locks?"

Rosamond approached more closely to the
doors, and answered in the affirmative.

"Open them, then," said Leonard, "Stop!
not by yourself. Take me with you. I don't
like the idea of sitting here, and leaving you
to open those doors by yourself."

Rosamond retraced her steps to the place
where he was sitting, and then led him with
her to the door that was farthest from the window.
"Suppose there should be some dreadful
sight behind it!" she said, trembling a little,
as she stretched out her hand towards the
key.

"Try to suppose (what is much more
probable), that it only leads into another room,"
suggested Leonard.

Rosamond threw the door wide open,
suddenly. Her husband was right. It merely
led into the next room.

They passed on to the second door. "Can
this one serve the same purpose as the
other?" said Rosamond, slowly and
distrustfully turning the key.

She opened it as she had opened the first
door, put her head inside it for an instant,
drew back, shuddering, and closed it again
violently, with a faint exclamation of disgust.
"Don't be alarmed, Lenny," she said, leading
him away abruptly. "The door only opens
on a large, empty cupboard. But there are
quantities of horrible, crawling brown
creatures about the wall inside. I have shut
them in again in their darkness and their
secresy; and now I am going to take you
back to your seat, before we find out, next,
what the book-case contains."

The door of the upper part of the book-
case hanging open and half-dropping from
its hinges, showed the emptiness of the
shelves on one side at a glance. The
corresponding door, when Rosamond pulled it open,
disclosed exactly the same spectacle of
bareness on the other side. Over every shelf
there spread the same dreary accumulation
of dust and dirt, without a vestige of a book,
without even a stray scrap of paper, lying
anywhere in a corner to attract the eye, from
top to bottom.

The lower portion of the bookcase was
divided into three cupboards. In the door of
one of the three, the rusty key remained in
the lock. Rosamond turned it with some
difficulty, and looked into the cupboard. At
the back of it were scattered a pack of playing
cards, brown with dirt. A morsel of
torn, tangled muslin lay among them, which,
when Rosamond spread it out, proved to be
the remains of a clergyman's band. In one
corner she found a broken corkscrew, and
the winch of a fishing-rod; in another, some
stumps of tobacco pipes, a few old medicine
bottles, and a dog's-eared pedlar's song-book.
These were all the objects that the cupboard
contained. After Rosamond had scrupulously
described each one of them to her husband,
just as she found it, she went on to the second
cupboard. On trying the door, it turned out
not to be locked. On looking inside, she
discovered nothing but some pieces of blackened
cotton wool, and the remains of a jeweller's
packing-case.

The third door was locked, but the rusty
key from the first cupboard opened it. Inside,
there was but one object—a small wooden
box, banded round with a piece of tape, the
two edges of which were fastened together
by a seal. Rosamond's flagging interest
rallied instantly at this discovery. She
described the box to her husband, and asked if
he thought she was justified in breaking the
seal.

"Can you see anything written on the
cover?" he inquired.

Rosamond carried the box to the window,
blew the dust off the top of it, and read, on a
parchment label nailed to the cover: PAPERS.
JOHN ARTHUR TREVERTON. 1760.

"I think you may take the responsibility
of breaking the seal," said Leonard. "If
those papers had been of any family importance,
they could scarcely have been left
forgotten in an old book-case by your father and
his executors."

Rosamond broke the seal, then looked up
doubtfully at her husband before she opened
the box. "It seems a mere waste of time to