he had ever seen the
mutilated volume out of its place; he answered that he never had, and
had always thought it a fixture. With that he went to it, and gave it a
pull: it seemed immovable.

CHAPTER II. THE MIRROR

Nothing more happened for some days. I think it was about a week after,
when what I have now to tell took place.

I had often thought of the manuscript fragment, and repeatedly tried
to discover some way of releasing it, but in vain: I could not find out
what held it fast.

But I had for some time intended a thorough overhauling of the books in
the closet, its atmosphere causing me uneasiness as to their condition.
One day the intention suddenly became a resolve, and I was in the act of
rising from my chair to make a beginning, when I saw the old librarian
moving from the door of the closet toward the farther end of the room.
I ought rather to say only that I caught sight of something shadowy from
which I received the impression of a slight, stooping man, in a shabby
dress-coat reaching almost to his heels, the tails of which, disparting
a little as he walked, revealed thin legs in black stockings, and large
feet in wide, slipper-like shoes.

At once I followed him: I might be following a shadow, but I never
doubted I was following something. He went out of the library into the
hall, and across to the foot of the great staircase, then up the stairs
to the first floor, where lay the chief rooms. Past these rooms, I
following close, he continued his way, through a wide corridor, to the
foot of a narrower stair leading to the second floor. Up that he went
also, and when I reached the top, strange as it may seem, I found myself
in a region almost unknown to me. I never had brother or sister to
incite to such romps as make children familiar with nook and cranny; I
was a mere child when my guardian took me away; and I had never seen the
house again until, about a month before, I returned to take possession.

Through passage after passage we came to a door at the bottom of a
winding wooden stair, which we ascended. Every step creaked under my
foot, but I heard no sound from that of my guide. Somewhere in the
middle of the stair I lost sight of him, and from the top of it the
shadowy shape was nowhere visible. I could not even imagine I saw him.
The place was full of shadows, but he was not one of them.

I was in the main garret, with huge beams and rafters over my head,
great spaces around me, a door