appear, for things to be remedied
in this castle. When one has seen it in better days, one feels the worm
that eats through wood and silk, gnawing at one's very heart, Sir!"

"It is high to climb;" she apologised, as we came to the third steep
flight of stairs, "but I thought I would put you here, as you might
like to sleep in the rooms in which Count Ernest grew up to be the man
he is, and which he always preferred to any others. And they are more
comfortable too, for I look after them myself, and carefully dust out
every corner. And to-morrow morning, when you awake, you can see his
favorite tree by the window; it has grown up so high meanwhile, that by
reaching out your hand you can lay hold of it. Ah, and well a day! when
we live to be so old, we live to see many a young child, and many a
young tree, grow up and reach to Heaven, and leave us wearily to climb
after them!"

With these words, we came to the top, where a long low corridor ran
past a range of garret rooms, hardly above man's height. A covey of
newly fledged bats, scared by the light, were flapping about against
the ceiling. "There must be a hole somewhere in the roof;" said the old
lady looking up, with a shake of her head; "I have told the man to mend
it ten times and more. But he always pretends he can find no hole, and
thus it is with every thing."

She opened a door, and shewed me into a large low room, where a light
was burning on a chiffonier, and where the atmosphere was purer and
more lifelike than without.

"Here we are;" she said. "Here he lived until he went on his travels
with Monsieur Leclerc, and then again before he went to college; and
also the last time he was here. Everything is just as it used to be.
That faded tapestry with the great hunting pieces may have faded a
trifle more; and the writing-table there, with the brass mountings, by
the window--the wood-worm is making sad havoc of it. Every time I come,
I find above an inch of yellow dust to sweep away. That is his own
pretty blue water-bottle; and the gilded glass was a present from his
tutor. I worked that little rug before the bed, to give him when he was
confirmed, and he never would allow it to be removed, long after the
work was quite worn away. The bed is not his; I took his down stairs;"
and, with a faint flush, that brought back a touching tint of youth to
her refined old face, she added: "in that I sleep myself."

"Indeed, my dear Mamsell Flor," I said; "and he was wo