e's exceptional
opportunities should not be sacrificed."

"Sacrificed!" exclaimed the Daughter of the House. "I like that!"

"Of course I will not attempt to explain the doctor's motives, or try
to excuse him," said the gardener. "I can only tell what he did. He
protracted one of his wife's trances, and when it had continued for a
month he determined to keep it up for half a century, if it could be
done; and he went earnestly to work for the purpose. The old doctor had
not altogether approved of his partner's action, but I don't believe he
disapproved very much, for he also possessed a good deal of the spirit
of scientific investigation. When everything had been arranged, and the
lady had been placed in a large and handsome box which had been designed
with great care by her husband and constructed under his careful
supervision, she was carried into the little room which had been her
boudoir; and there her husband watched and guarded her for nearly a
year. In all that time there was not the slightest change in her so far
as mortal eye could see, but there came a change over her husband. He
grew uneasy and restless, and could not sleep at night; and, at last, he
told Dr. Torquino he would have to go away; he could not stay any longer
and see his beautiful wife lying motionless before him. The desire to
revive her had become so great he found it impossible to withstand it,
and therefore, in the interest of science and for the advantage of the
world, he must put it out of his power to interfere with the success of
his own great experiment.

"He wrote down on parchment everything that was necessary for the person
to know who had charge of this great treasure, and he made Dr. Torquino
swear to guard and to protect Donna Paltravi for forty-nine years, if
he should live so long, and, if he did not, that he would deliver his
charge into the hands of some worthy and reliable person. If, at the end
of the lady's half-century of inanimation, Paltravi should not make his
appearance, on account of having died, (for nothing else would keep him
away), then the person in charge of the lady was to animate her in the
manner which was fully and minutely described on the parchment. Paltravi
then departed, and since that time nothing had been heard of him.

"When Jaqui came into possession of Dr. Torquino's house, he felt he
owned the contents of only two floors, and that the second floor,
especially the little room in the rear, was a gre