ter
dinner, would the Herr on the terrace still a while linger?"

The Herr would, but looked around in vain for the means to do it. He
was thinking of a scaling-ladder, when the young woman reappeared at the
open door, and bade him enter.

Following the youthful hostess, Mr. Clinch mounted the staircase, but,
passing the mysterious wall, could not forbear an allusion to it. "It is
old, very old," said the girl: "it was here when I came."

"That was not very long ago," said Mr. Clinch gallantly.

"No; but my grandfather found it here too."

"And built over it?"

"Why not? It is very, very hard, and SO thick."

Mr. Clinch here explained, with masculine superiority, the existence of
such modern agents as nitro-glycerine and dynamite, persuasive in their
effects upon time-honored obstructions and encumbrances.

"But there was not then what you call--this--ni--nitro-glycerine."

"But since then?"

The young girl gazed at him in troubled surprise. "My great-grandfather
did not take it away when he built the house: why should we?"

"Oh!"

They had passed through a hall and dining-room, and suddenly stepped
out of a window upon a gravelled terrace. From this a few stone steps
descended to another terrace, on which trees and shrubs were growing;
and yet, looking over the parapet, Mr. Clinch could see the road some
twenty feet below. It was nearly on a level with, and part of, the
second story of the house. Had an earthquake lifted the adjacent
ground? or had the house burrowed into a hill? Mr. Clinch turned to his
companion, who was standing close beside him, breathing quite audibly,
and leaving an impression on his senses as of a gentle and fragrant
heifer.

"How was all this done?"

The maiden did not know. "It was always here."

Mr. Clinch reascended the steps. He had quite forgotten his impatience.
Possibly it was the gentle, equable calm of the girl, who, but for her
ready color, did not seem to be moved by anything; perhaps it was the
peaceful repose of this mausoleum of the dead and forgotten wall that
subdued him, but he was quite willing to take the old-fashioned chair
on the terrace which she offered him, and follow her motions with not
altogether mechanical eyes as she drew out certain bottles and glasses
from a mysterious closet in the wall. Mr. Clinch had the weakness of a
majority of his sex in believing that he was a good judge of wine and
women. The latter, as shown in the specimen before him,