frightful gusts of wind which accompany it, you will probably think
you discern (for your lamp is not extinguished) one part of the hanging
more violently agitated than the rest. Unable of course to repress your
curiosity in so favourable a moment for indulging it, you will instantly
arise, and throwing your dressing-gown around you, proceed to examine
this mystery. After a very short search, you will discover a division in
the tapestry so artfully constructed as to defy the minutest inspection,
and on opening it, a door will immediately appear--which door, being
only secured by massy bars and a padlock, you will, after a few efforts,
succeed in opening--and, with your lamp in your hand, will pass through
it into a small vaulted room."

"No, indeed; I should be too much frightened to do any such thing."

"What! Not when Dorothy has given you to understand that there is a
secret subterraneous communication between your apartment and the chapel
of St. Anthony, scarcely two miles off? Could you shrink from so simple
an adventure? No, no, you will proceed into this small vaulted room,
and through this into several others, without perceiving anything very
remarkable in either. In one perhaps there may be a dagger, in another
a few drops of blood, and in a third the remains of some instrument of
torture; but there being nothing in all this out of the common way,
and your lamp being nearly exhausted, you will return towards your own
apartment. In repassing through the small vaulted room, however, your
eyes will be attracted towards a large, old-fashioned cabinet of ebony
and gold, which, though narrowly examining the furniture before, you
had passed unnoticed. Impelled by an irresistible presentiment, you will
eagerly advance to it, unlock its folding doors, and search into
every drawer--but for some time without discovering anything of
importance--perhaps nothing but a considerable hoard of diamonds. At
last, however, by touching a secret spring, an inner compartment will
open--a roll of paper appears--you seize it--it contains many sheets of
manuscript--you hasten with the precious treasure into your own chamber,
but scarcely have you been able to decipher 'Oh! Thou--whomsoever thou
mayst be, into whose hands these memoirs of the wretched Matilda may
fall'--when your lamp suddenly expires in the socket, and leaves you in
total darkness."

"Oh! No, no--do not say so. Well, go on."

But Henry was too much amused by the int