How sweet and small it looked in the mellow sunshine! We mounted the
stone _perron_, and opened the door and entered. My heart beat
violently.
Everything was as it had always been, as far as I could see. Dr.
Seraskier sat in a chair by the window reading Schiller, and took no
notice of us. His hair moved in the gentle breeze. Overhead we heard the
rooms being swept and the beds made.
I followed her into a little lumber-room, where I did not remember to
have been before; it was full of odds and ends.
"Why have you brought me here?" I asked.
She laughed and said--
"Open the door in the wall opposite."
There was no door, and I said so.
Then she took my hand, and lo! there _was_ a door! And she pushed, and
we entered another suite of apartments that never could have been there
before; there had never been room for them--nor ever could have been--in
all Passy!
[Illustration: "'AND NEUHA LED HER TORQUIL BY THE HAND.'"]
"Come," she said, laughing and blushing at once; for she seemed nervous
and excited and shy--do you remember--
'And Neuha led her Torquil by the hand,
And waved along the vault her flaming brand!'
--do you remember your little drawing out of _The Island_, in the green
morocco Byron? Here it is, in the top drawer of this beautiful cabinet.
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