“Yes, they are just the horrid things great connoisseurs of the last century liked, by way of giving themselves an appetite,” said Caroline.

“Are not fine pictures always horrid?” asked Jessie, in all simplicity.

The drawing-rooms, a whole suite—-antechamber, saloon, music-room, and card-room, were all swathed up in brown holland, hanging even from the picture rods along the wall.  Even in the days of the most liberal housekeeper, Ellen had never done more than peep beneath.  So she revelled in investigations of gilding and yellow satin, ormolu and marble, big mirrors and Sevres clocks, a three-piled carpet, and a dazzling prismatic chandelier, though all was pervaded with such a chill of unused dampness and odour of fustiness, that Caroline’s first impression was that it was a perilous place for one so lately recovered.  However, Ellen believed in no danger till she came on two monstrous stains of damp on the walls, with a whole crop of curious fungi in one corner, and discovered that all the holland was flabby, and all the damask clammy!  Then she enforced the instant lighting of fires, and shivered so decidedly, that Caroline and Jessie begged her to return to the fire in the library, while Jessie went in search of Rob to drive her home.

All the rest of the younger population had deserted the state apartments, and were to be heard in the distance, clattering along the passages, banging doors, bawling and shouting to each other, with freaks of such laughter as had never awakened those echoes during the Barnes’ tenure, but Jessie returned not; and her aunt, going in quest of her up a broad flight of shallow stairs, found herself in a grand gallery, with doors leading to various corridors and stairs.  She called, and the tramp of the boots of youth began to descend on her, with shouts of “All right!” and downstairs flowed the troop, beginning with Jock, and ending with Armine and Babie, each with some breathless exclamation, all jumbled together—-

Jock.  “Oh, mother!  Stunning!  Lots of bats fast asleep.”

Johnny.  “Rats! rats!”

Rob.  “A billiard-table.”

Joe.  “Mother Carey, may Pincher kill your rats?”

Armine.  “One wants a clue of thread to find one’s way.”

Janet.  “I’ve counted five-and-thirty bedrooms already, and that’s not all.”

Babie.  “And there’s a little copper tea-kettle in each.  May my dolls have one?”

Bobus.  “There’s nothing else in most of them; and, my eyes! how musty they smell.”

Elvira.  “I will have the room with the big red bed, with a gold crown at the top.”

Allen.  “Mother, it will be a magnificent place, but it must have a vast deal done to it.”

But Mother Carey was only looking for Jessie.  No one had seen her.  Janet suggested that she had taken a rat for a ghost, and they began to look and call in all quarters, till at last she appeared, looking rather white and scared at having lost herself, being bewildered by the voices and steps echoing here, there, and everywhere.  The barrenness and uniformity did make it very easy to get lost, for even while they were talking, Joe was heard roaring to know where they were, nor would he stand still till they came up with him, but confused them and himself by running to meet them by some deluding stair.