seem!" Suddenly, with a little cry of triumph,
she leaned over and partially pulled out an elaborate silk dress.

"Look! look! what did I tell you! Here is the very dress of the
picture-lady, this queer, changeable silk, these big sleeves, and the
velvet sewed on in a funny criss-cross pattern! _Now_ will you believe
me?"

Truly, Cynthia could no longer doubt. It was the identical dress, beyond
question. The portrait must have been painted when the garment was new.
They felt that at last they had taken a long step in the right direction
by thus identifying this room as belonging to the lovely lady of the
portrait down-stairs. Joy grew so excited that she could hardly contain
a "hurrah," and Cynthia was not far behind her in enthusiasm. But the
room had further details to be examined.

An open fireplace showed traces of letters having been torn up and
burned. Little, half-charred scraps with faint writing still lay
scattered on the hearth. On the dressing-table, articles of the toilet
were littered about, and a pair of candlesticks were set close to the
mirror. (There were, by the way, no traces of _candles_ about the house.
Mice had doubtless carried off every vestige of such, long since.) A
great wardrobe stood in one corner, the open doors of which revealed
some garments still hanging on the pegs, woolen dresses mostly, reduced
now to little more than rags through the ravages of moths and mice and
time. Near the bed stood a pair of dainty, high-heeled satin slippers,
forgotten through the years. Everywhere a hasty departure was indicated,
so hasty, as Joyce remarked, "that the lady decided probably not to take
her trunks, after all, but left, very likely, with only a hand-bag!"

"And now," cried Joyce, the irrepressible, "we've seen everything in
this room. Let's hurry to look at the last one on this floor. That's
right over the library, I think, at the end of the hall. We've
discovered a lot here, but I've a notion that we'll find the best of all
in there!" As they were leaving the room, Goliath, who had curled
himself up on a soft rug before the fireplace, rose, stretched himself,
yawned widely, and prepared to follow, wherever they led.

"Doesn't he seem at home here!" laughed Cynthia. "I hope he will come
every time we do. He makes things seem more natural, somehow." They
reached the end of the hall, and Joyce fumbled for the handle, this
door, contrary to the usual rule, being shut. Then, for the first time