doors of which were
chiefly open, showing the most luxurious and costly furniture, and the
richest hangings, containing chests filled with rich velvets and satins,
and all other requirements of ladies' dress. Some rooms were evidently
sleeping apartments, others were furnished as parlors, the walls being
hung with tapestry, and adorned with rare paintings and mirrors in
frames of the most exquisite workmanship, in ivory, silver and bronze.
Rich carpets and rugs covered the floors. The rooms all felt dry. They
had wide, open fireplaces in which stood fire dogs of brass or iron; in
some of them still remained half-burned or charred logs, and the dead
ashes of long years ago. The ladies remarked that, amidst all this
abundance of wealth, there was a certain incongruity in the arrangement
of the contents of every room. In one they found silk draperies from
India, a divan from Turkey, an Italian settee in the finest Florentine
carving; beside it a massive English table of heart of oak, and the
light, spider-legged gilt chairs of Paris, with their faded red silk
cushions, and so on. They rambled through room after room. In many of
them were firearms of all dates and nations, sabers and cutlasses,
daggers and swords, with pistols and guns, and powder flasks, and
spears. Some of these lay upon the tables and chairs, and others hung
from the walls. In all the sleeping-rooms, were numberless articles of
men's dress, uniforms and costumes of various kinds, sufficient in
variety to supply disguises for a whole regiment. With the exception of
the number of firearms and other instruments of warfare lying about, the
rooms were all in order. The reflection of the setting sun streamed in
at the windows, and across the floors at the west side of the castle,
and lit up the mirrors, and pictures, and beautiful and curious works of
art, which hung on the walls, or stood on the shelves, or on quaint
pieces of furniture, and which abounded everywhere and made the interior
of the building a pleasant contrast to the gloomy-looking outside.

Passing hastily through the rooms which led off the corridors, the
ladies returned to the great tower at the south end. They found the
door, which gave entrance to it was closed; but on Mrs. Carleton laying
her hand upon the lock, it at once gave way, and they went through a
vestibule, and entered a large and very handsome room. It was octagon in
form, with a window in every division. The upper part of each