Two days of drizzling rain followed, and did their best to make the black roof and mouldy walls of Bergan Hall look more cheerless than ever. But a counteracting influence was busy within. An energetic young spirit was rapidly organizing a home for itself in one corner; turning the shadows out of nooks where they had lain so long as almost to have established a pre-emption right, and making short work with dust, mould, and dead air. And, in some inexplicable way, the whole house seemed to catch the pleasant infection, and to be faintly astir with life. A passer-by of delicate instincts would have seen at once that the long lease of silence and emptiness had expired. And in truth, it would have been strange if a dwelling, so old--so long familiar with human affairs and interests, the very timbers of which must have been oozy with the exhalations of a long succession of joys and sorrows--had not shown itself ready to sympathize with every passing phase of life, and especially to welcome back to its empty old bosom a fresh, young, beating heart. That it did so, Bergan felt intuitively. In return, he did what he could to vivify with his single personality its whole wide indoor world. Having received unlimited discretionary powers from his uncle, in regard to choice of rooms and furniture, as well as the most unrestrained privilege of exploration, he went from room to room, ransacking and arranging, here picking up a quaintly carved chair, and there an absurdly contorted little table, and setting wide open doors and windows wherever he could find a reasonable excuse for doing so. He even mounted to the garret, a great twilight-hall, stored with the lumber of many vanished generations, and dived into nooks of dingiest obscurity, with the eager zeal of a discoverer; coming forth covered with dust and cobwebs, and laden with spoils. File upon file of yellow papers, having a possible interest as family annals, a curiously gnarled and twisted genealogical tree, a dust-choked flute, several Spanish songs in manuscript, a discolored sketch-book, and a quaint old secretary, from the innumerable pigeon-holes of which sprang a whole colony of alarmed mice,--these were among the treasures that he unearthed, and transferred to his own room for examination or use. Every hour, the home-feeling grew upon him. Despite the gray and dripping sky, and the disconsolate, water-soaked earth, these days had their own peculiar illumination and charm. Oldness and newness combined to produce one rich--albeit, a little heavy--atmosphere of enjoyment.