hing of them all. To solve
my speculations, and to dispel the awe which was fast gathering around
me as if the dead were drawing near, I approached the secretary; and
having found the key that fitted the upper portion, I opened it with
some difficulty, drew near it a heavy high-backed chair, and sat down
before a multitude of little drawers and slides and pigeon-holes. But
the door of a little cupboard in the centre especially attracted my
interest, as if there lay the secret of this long-hidden world. Its key
I found.

One of the rusty hinges cracked and broke as I opened the door: it
revealed a number of small pigeon-holes. These, however, being but
shallow compared with the depth of those around the little cupboard, the
outer ones reaching to the back of the desk, I concluded that there
must be some accessible space behind; and found, indeed, that they were
formed in a separate framework, which admitted of the whole being pulled
out in one piece. Behind, I found a sort of flexible portcullis of small
bars of wood laid close together horizontally. After long search, and
trying many ways to move it, I discovered at last a scarcely projecting
point of steel on one side. I pressed this repeatedly and hard with
the point of an old tool that was lying near, till at length it
yielded inwards; and the little slide, flying up suddenly, disclosed a
chamber--empty, except that in one corner lay a little heap of withered
rose-leaves, whose long-lived scent had long since departed; and, in
another, a small packet of papers, tied with a bit of ribbon, whose
colour had gone with the rose-scent. Almost fearing to touch them, they
witnessed so mutely to the law of oblivion, I leaned back in my chair,
and regarded them for a moment; when suddenly there stood on the
threshold of the little chamber, as though she had just emerged from its
depth, a tiny woman-form, as perfect in shape as if she had been a small
Greek statuette roused to life and motion. Her dress was of a kind that
could never grow old-fashioned, because it was simply natural: a robe
plaited in a band around the neck, and confined by a belt about the
waist, descended to her feet. It was only afterwards, however, that I
took notice of her dress, although my surprise was by no means of so
overpowering a degree as such an apparition might naturally be expected
to excite. Seeing, however, as I suppose, some astonishment in my
countenance, she came forward within a yard of me