upon the same level and between
continually going down or up three or four steps in a journey through
the mansion upon which Dr. Bransby guided him and his foster-parents,
the dazed little boy found it almost impossible to determine upon which
of the two main floors he happened to be. It was afterward to become a
source of secret satisfaction to him that he never finally decided upon
which floor was the dim sleeping apartment to which he was introduced
soon after supper, and which he shared with eighteen or twenty other
boys.

The business of formally entering the pupil about whom the Allans and
Dr. Bransby had already corresponded, in the school, was soon
dispatched, and once more the iron gate swung open upon its weirdly
complaining hinges, then went to again with a bang and a clang, and the
little boy from far Virginia, with the wistful grey eyes and the sunny
curls was alone in a throng of curious school-fellows, and in the
dimness, the strangeness, the vastness of a hoary, mysterious mansion
full of echoes, and of quaint crannies and closets where shadows lurked
by day as well as by candle-light. Alone, yet not unhappy--for Edgar the
Dreamer was holding full sway. With the departure of his foster-father,
all check was removed from his fancy which could, and did, run riot in
this creepy and fascinating old place, and at night he had to comfort
him the miniature of his mother from which he had never been parted for
an hour, and which he still carried to bed with him with unfailing
regularity.

He had always known that his mother was English-born, and somehow, in
his mind, there seemed to be some mystic connection between this ancient
town and manor house and the green graveyard in Richmond, with its
mouldy tombstones and encompassing wall.

* * * * *

Not until the next morning was the new pupil ushered into the
school-room--the largest room in the world it seemed to the small,
lonely stranger. It was long, narrow and low-pitched. Its ceiling was
of oak, black with age, and the daylight struggled fitfully in through
pointed, Gothic windows. Built into a remote and terror-inspiring corner
was a box-like enclosure, eight or ten feet high, of heavy oak, like the
ceiling, with a massy door of the same sombre wood. This, the newcomer
soon learned was the "sanctum" of the head-master--the Rev. Dr.
Bransby--whose sour visage, snuffy habiliments and upraised ferule
seemed so terrible to y