look at the rows of pictures. Two had fallen on the floor; the rest still hung securely upon the wall. Beruffed and long-curled cavaliers, and ladies with billowing skirts, and coiffures towering high like the poops of ancient galleons, or clad in the revealing costumes of the later Napoleonic era, stared back at her as if wondering at her intrusion.
A gloomy sea-scape hung over the piano, and in the adjoining corner of the wall, its companion, now nothing but a gaping frame. Jagged remnants of canvas left in the slits of the tarnished gilt, showed that the painting had been hurriedly slashed from the carved wood, undoubtedly by some thief, fearful of discovery.
She heard a stray footfall above her head, and again the slow-measured, sorrowful chant. For all its weirdness in these strange surroundings, it was so beautiful that she was not afraid. She ascended the staircase. In the deep layer of dust upon the rail, at regular intervals, were the recent impressions of human fingers.
On tiptoe she stepped over the hallway, and saw three figures within the most spacious of the upper rooms. Under a moth-eaten canopy, the bed was banked with flowers. And there, as though she had fallen asleep overcome by their fragrance, lay the tiny form of a very old lady. Grey ringlets, like a child's, fell over delicate cameo features, pale as the whitest of the blossoms. She made even Death seem a lovely thing when it brought so deep and quiet a slumber.
Beside her knelt a young man, whose profile was like hers but dark and animate. From his hand an open prayer-book had fallen on the floor.
