e doors, the colonial belles and beaux used
to thrust their elaborately dressed heads into these rooms, that they
might be powdered in there without the sweet-scented clouds enveloping
silks and velvets too.

From bedrooms to basement is a long way; but we would see the old stone
bench down there where used to sit the row of black boys to answer
bells from these rooms above. Just over the bench hangs still a tangle
of the broken bell wires. When colonial Brandon was filled with guests,
there must often have been a merry jangle above the old stone bench and
a swift patter of feet on the flags. Standing there to-day, one can
almost fancy an impatient tinkle. Is it from some high-coiffured beauty
in the south wing with a message that must go post-haste--a missive
sanded, scented, and sealed by a trembling hand and to be opened by one
no steadier? or is it perhaps from some bewigged councillor with
knee-buckles glinting in the firelight as he waits for the subtle
heart-warming of an apple toddy?

Now, we were ready to go home; but we did not start at once. A stranger
going anywhere from Brandon should imitate the cautious railways and
have his schedule subject to change without notice. At the last moment,
some new old thing is bound to get between him and the door. In our
case, two or three of them did.

Somebody spoke of a secret panel. That sounded well; and even though we
were assured that nothing had been found behind it, we went to the
south wing to look at the hole in the wall. At one side of a fireplace,
a bit of metal had been found under the molding of a panel in the
wainscoting. It was evidently a secret spring, but one that had long
since lost its cunning; stiff with age and rust, it failed to respond
to the discovering touch. In the end, the panel had to be just
prosaically pried out. And, worst of all, the dim recess behind it was
empty.

When we had peered within the roomy secret space and had wondered what
had been concealed there and what hands had pressed the hidden spring,
we might really have started for the houseboat if it had not been for
the skull story. But there, just underneath a window of the
secret-panel room, was another place of secrets. It was a brick
projection from the wall of such peculiar form as to have invited
investigation. When some bricks had been removed and some earth taken
out, a human skull showed white and ghastly. Then, at the touch of
moving air, it crumbled away. That was