Something,—was it the atmosphere of the place, or some train of recollections awakened by the objects about him?—seemed to subdue him at this point, and he paused for a moment with his head fallen on his breast. Then he raised it again, and with even more resolution than before began to survey the mildewed walls and faded furniture, with an eye that missed nothing, from the great four-poster to the mould-covered bellows at the side of the open fireplace. It had been Mrs. Earle’s bed-room, and had witnessed the birth of Polly and the long and mysterious illness which had terminated in the death of the mother. Here Ephraim Earle had lavished kisses on his babe and laid his icy hand over the scarcely colder lids of his dead wife. Here had he experienced his keenest joys and here had he suffered his greatest sorrows. The room seemed alive with them yet, and from every corner stared mementos of the past which were all the more eloquent and impressive that no foreign hand had touched them since their owner had passed away from their midst a dozen years before. Even the candle which had lighted her last gasp remained where it had been left on a little table in one corner; and beside it was a book from which the finger seemed to have been just withdrawn, though the dust that covered it lay thick on its browned cover, and the mark which issued from one end of its discolored leaves had lost its pristine hue and had faded to a tint almost beyond recognition. The stranger stopped before this book and seemed to be tempted to take it up, but refrained from doing so, as he had already refrained from meddling with many another object lying on the high cupboards and the tall mantel-shelf. But before the sticks in the fireplace he showed no such hesitation. He turned them and twirled them, and examined the ashes in which they had lain, and finally, seeing the end of a piece of paper, he drew it out. It was the fragment of a letter, worthless probably and of no especial interest in itself, but he seemed to regard it as a treasure, and after looking at it for a minute, he thrust it into his pocket. There were a few articles of apparel hanging in the press at the foot of the bed, and these he looked carefully over. Some of them were men’s clothes, and these he handled with a lingering touch, smiling grimly as he did so. He even took down a coat, and after a moment’s thought put it on, and surveyed himself thus accoutered in the film-covered mirror at the other end of the room. But the latter was too clouded to make a good reflection, and pleased to see that the sleeves came naturally to the wrist, though the buttons failed to fasten over the chest, he muttered stealthily as he drew the garment off, “One’s arms do not lengthen with age, though the body often grows larger. A very good test indeed!”