uncarpeted floor, that struck a vague chill through my blood, and I actually hesitated for the moment whether to pursue the investigations I had promised myself, or beat a hasty retreat.  A glance at the huge distorted limbs swaying across the square of the open window decided me.  It was easy to enter by means of that unsteady support, but it would be extremely unsafe to venture forth in that way.  If I prized life and limb I must seek some other method of egress.  I at once put my apprehensions in my pocket and entered upon my self imposed task.

A single glance was sufficient to exhaust the resources of the empty garret in which I found myself.  Two or three old chairs piled in one corner, a rusty stove or so, a heap of tattered and decaying clothing, were all that met my gaze.  Taking my way, then, at once to the ladder, whose narrow ends projecting above a hole in the garret floor, seemed to proffer the means of reaching the rooms below, I proceeded to descend into what to my excited imagination looked like a gulf of darkness.  It proved, however, to be nothing more nor less than an unlighted hall of small dimensions, with a stair-case at one end and a door at the other, which, upon opening I found myself in a large, square room whose immense four-post bedstead entirely denuded of its usual accompaniments of bed and bolster at once struck my eye and for a moment held it enchained.  There were other articles in the room; a disused bureau, a rocking chair, even a table, but nothing had such a ghostly look as that antique bedstead with its curtains of calico tied back over its naked framework, like rags draped from the bare bones of a skeleton.  Passing hurriedly by, I tried a closet door or so, finding little, however, to reward my search; and eager to be done with what was every moment becoming more and more drearisome, I hastened across the floor to the front of the house where I found another hall and a row of rooms that, while not entirely stripped of furniture, were yet sufficiently barren to offer little encouragement to my curiosity.  One only, a small but not uncomfortable apartment, showed any signs of having been occupied within a reasonable length of time; and as I paused before its hastily spread bed, thrown together as only a man would do it, and wondering why the room was so dark, looked up and saw that the window was entirely covered by an old shawl and a couple of heavy coats that had been hastily nailed across it, I own I felt my hand go to my breast pocket almost as if I expected to see the wild faces of the dreaded Schoenmakers start up all aglare from one of the dim corners before me.  Rushing to the window, I tore down with one sweep of my arm both coat and shawl, and with a start discovered that the window still possessed its draperies in the shape of a pair of discolored and tattered curtains tied with ribbons that must once have been brilliant and cheery of color.