--But by this time Barrie's head had arrived at
the top of the steep stairs, and her eyes were peering cautiously
through clouds of gold dust along the level of a floor, mountainous in
its far horizon with piled chests, trunks, and furniture.

The gold poured through three very high, small dormer-windows which
until now Barrie had known only from outside, staring up at the ivied
house wall from the east garden. The dust lived in the garret air, and
was different from, more wonderful and mysterious than, any other dust,
except perhaps the dust far off in the distance at sunset, where
motor-cars you could not see passed along a road invisible.

Barrie couldn't be quite certain at first whether the garret was empty
of human life, or whether Mrs. Muir was likely to pounce upon her with
reproaches from behind one of those immense oak posts which went up like
trees to meet the high beamed roof. Or she might be concealed by an
oasis of furniture. There were several such oases in the large
wilderness of garret, which covered the whole upper story of the old
house. But a lovely garret it was, a heavenly garret! even better than
Barrie had dreamed it might be, with her eye at the keyhole of the
stairway door. It was peopled with possibilities--glorious, echoing,
beckoning possibilities--which made her heart beat as she could not
remember its beating before.

She climbed the remaining steps regardless of squeaks, because she could
not any longer bear the suspense concerning Mrs. Muir. Nothing moved in
answer to the old wood's complainings, and there was no other sound, or
rather there were no real sounds such as are made by people; but when
Barrie reached the head of the stairs the whole garret was full, to her
ears, of delicate rustlings and whisperings, sighs and footfalls and
breathings, and scurryings out of sight.

No, Mrs. Muir was not here, or by this time she would be out in the open
and scolding hard.

Barrie drew in deep breaths of the strange, still atmosphere which was
like air that had been put to sleep years and years ago. It must have
smelt exactly like this, she thought quietly, in the lost palace of La
Belle Dormante when the Prince found his way in through barricading
thickets. Barrie would hardly have been surprised if she had stumbled
upon a Sleeping Beauty. If she had, she would have said to herself, "So
that's the secret Mrs. Muir's been hiding, by keeping the door locked
up. I _told_ you so!"

The sce