wall hung a beautiful print from Raffaelle, of which she
knew the giver as surely as if his name had been written on it; and the
small bookcase suspended near contained, compressed together, an
epitome of Louis's tastes--the choicest of all his favourites, in each
class of book. Mary stood by it, reading the names, and trying to
perceive Louis's principle of selection in each case. It jarred upon
her when, as the gentlemen loitered about, waiting for the evening
meal, they came and looked at the titles, with careless remarks that
the superintendent was a youth of taste, and a laugh at the odd
medley--Spenser, Shakspeare, 'Don Quixote,' Calderon, Fouque, and
selections from Jeremy Taylor, &c.

Mary would hear no more comments. She went to the fire, and tried to
persuade Rosita they would come safe down again; and then, on the
apology for a mantelshelf, she saw some fossils and some dried grasses,
looking almost as if Fitzjocelyn had put them there.

She did not see Madison that night; but the next morning he presented
himself to act as their guide through the wonders of the extraordinary
region where his lot had been cast. She found that this was only the
first floor of the wondrous castle. Above and above, rose galleries,
whence the ore was lowered down to the buildings here placed, where it
underwent the first process of separation. The paths above were fit
for none, save a chamois, or a barefooted Indian, or a sailor--for the
midshipman was climbing aloft in such places, that Tom's chief work was
to summon him back, in horror lest he should involve himself in endless
galleries, excavated before the days of Atahualpa.

Much of the desperate scrambling which Madison recommended as
plain-sailing, was beyond Mr. Ponsonby; but where he went, Mary went;
and when he stopped, she, though she had not drawn since the master at
her school had resigned her, as a hopeless case, applied herself to the
perpetration of an outline of the rocks, that, as she said, 'her aunts
might see what sort of place it was.' Her steady head, and firm,
enterprizing hand and foot, enabled her to see the crowning wonder of
the mountain, one of the ventanillas or windows. Mr. Ward, having
visited it, came back bent on taking her thither; there was no danger,
if she were not afraid. So, between him and Tom Madison, she was
dragged up a steep path, and conducted into a gallery cut out in the
living rock, growing gloomier and gloomier, till su