We had expected it to be an empty place, of dust, cobwebs, and darkness. It was dusty enough and none too light, but it was far from empty. Four spinning-wheels of varying sizes were in plain view between us and the front window. A dozen or more of black, straight-backed chairs of the best and oldest pattern were mingled with a mass of other ancient relics--bandboxes, bird-cages, queer-shaped pots and utensils, trenchers, heaps of old periodicals, boxes of trinkets, wooden chests of mystery--a New England garret collection such as we had read of, but never seen, the accumulation of a century and a half of time and change. We looked at it greedily, for we had long ago acquired a hunger for such drift as that, left by the human tide. I said in a dead, hopeless tone: "I suppose it will all be taken away when the place is sold." William C. Westbury sighed. "Oh yes, we'll clear out whatever you don't care for," he said, gloomily, "but it all goes with the house, if anybody wants it." I gasped. "The--the spinning-wheels and the--the chairs?" "Everything--just as it is. We've got an attic full of such truck down the hill now--from _my_ family. I've hauled around about all that old stuff I ever want to." Our dream began to acquire extensive additions. We saw ourselves on rainy days pulling over that treasure-house, making priceless discoveries. Reluctantly we descended to the door-yard, taking another glance at the rooms as we went down. We whispered to each other that the place certainly had great possibilities, but it was mainly the attic we were thinking of. We went outside. Somehow the door-yard seemed a good deal brighter, and we agreed that an hour or two's brisk exercise with a scythe would work wonders. We walked down to the brook, and Mr. Westbury pulled back the willows from the swift water, and something darted away--trout, he said, and if he had declared them to weigh a pound apiece we should have accepted his appraisal, for we were still under the spell of that magic collection up there under the roof and his statement that everything went with the house.