She opened the door of the room and went into the corridor, and then she began her wanderings.  It was a long corridor and it branched into other corridors and it led her up short flights of steps which mounted to others again.  There were doors and doors, and there were pictures on the walls.  Sometimes they were pictures of dark, curious landscapes, but oftenest they were portraits of men and women in queer, grand costumes made of satin and velvet.  She found herself in one long gallery whose walls were covered with these portraits.  She had never thought there could be so many in any house.  She walked slowly down this place and stared at the faces which also seemed to stare at her.  She felt as if they were wondering what a little girl from India was doing in their house.  Some were pictures of children—­little girls in thick satin frocks which reached to their feet and stood out about them, and boys with puffed sleeves and lace collars and long hair, or with big ruffs around their necks.  She always stopped to look at the children, and wonder what their names were, and where they had gone, and why they wore such odd clothes.  There was a stiff, plain little girl rather like herself.  She wore a green brocade dress and held a green parrot on her finger.  Her eyes had a sharp, curious look.

“Where do you live now?” said Mary aloud to her.  “I wish you were here.”

Surely no other little girl ever spent such a queer morning.  It seemed as if there was no one in all the huge rambling house but her own small self, wandering about up-stairs and down, through narrow passages and wide ones, where it seemed to her that no one but herself had ever walked.  Since so many rooms had been built, people must have lived in them, but it all seemed so empty that she could not quite believe it true.

It was not until she climbed to the second floor that she thought of turning the handle of a door.  All the doors were shut, as Mrs. Medlock had said they were, but at last she put her hand on the handle of one of them and turned it.  She was almost frightened for a moment when she felt that it turned without difficulty and that when she pushed upon the door itself it slowly and heavily opened.  It was a massive door and opened into a big bedroom.  There were embroidered hangings on the wall, and inlaid furniture such as she had seen in India stood about the room.  A broad window with leaded panes looked out upon the moor; and over the mantel was another portrait of the stiff, plain little girl who seemed to stare at her more curiously than ever.

“Perhaps she slept here once,” said Mary.  “She stares at me so that she makes me feel queer.”

After that she opened more doors and more.  She saw so many rooms that she became quite tired and began to think that there must be a hundred, though she had not counted them.  In all of them there were old pictures or old tapestries with strange scenes worked on them.  There were curious pieces of furniture and curious ornaments in nearly all of them.