utterflies, glancing here and there, gave a bright and pleasant air to
the room, but the ladies felt much disturbed by the discovery of wolves
so near them, and the knowledge of the open door in the passage below.

"Miss Vyvyan," said Mrs. Carleton, "there are other doors of entrance to
this, castle; I saw them, we will go and see if we can open one of
them; and then we will close up the door below altogether."

At the end of a passage leading from the tower, and not far from the
green parlor, they found a massive door, strongly barred and bolted
inside. They drew the bolts, and on opening it led down on the outside,
by a long flight of stone stairs to the grass below, and very near to
the place on which they stood on their arrival from the beach.

"We shall be safe in one respect now," said Mrs. Carleton, "for no
animal can break this door and we can keep it bolted."

The first thing to be done now was to close up the entrance down stairs.
The ladies went down and out through the door by which they had entered
the castle at the north end. Quickly gathering up some of the wood which
lay round about them, they set fire to it, in order to scare away any
wolves which might be prowling near, and at once went to work, carrying
stones from the ruins of the fallen tower, and by their joint strength
replacing the door. They next piled up such a barrier of great stones
behind it, that they were sure that no wolves could enter that way. They
had finished their first attempt at building and were about to go up
again to the green parlor, when the child with a little laugh and in its
sprightly way cried out,

"Kitta, kitta, see kitta." At the same instant running as fast as her
tiny feet could go, after two small white kittens which the next moment
disappeared down the half-dark stairs, that they had noticed when they
first arrived, but were too tired to investigate at that time.

They now looked down them and in the dim light, saw only a passage which
led in the direction of the fallen tower. They satisfied themselves that
there was no opening from that to the outside of the building, and
concluded that the immense pile of ruins completely stopped up all means
of ingress that way, so they decided not to go to the bottom of the
gloomy staircase for mere curiosity, when time was so precious to them,
for they felt as Mrs. Carleton had remarked that winter might be upon
them very soon. They passed all the remainder of the day in br