The young lady was not long in doing something which, in most young ladies, would be called foolish. She kneeled on the stained carpet to draw out a volume or two of the row of mouldy folios next the floor. She was fortunate in finding another curiosity. “Look, look, Richard! Leave those globes alone, and come here. Here is a skeleton of something. What is it, Wallace? A rabbit? It looks like a rabbit; but there can be no rabbits in this place. That is right; take away the next volume, and the next.” Wallace was doing this, under pretence of wanting more light; for he was vexed at not being able to pronounce in a moment what animal this was the skeleton of. “How curious! how very pretty!” continued Fanny; “spun all over with cobwebs, and fastened to the wall with cobwebs! But what animal can it be? Something that crouches.” “Ah, ha!” cried Wallace; “now I see. It is a cat. Here is the skeleton of a rat a little way before it. Plainly a rat, you see, which could get no farther between the books and the wall: this great Josephus stopped it.” “And it dared not go back for fear of the cat; and the cat could not quite reach it. But what prevented the cat’s going back? Oh, it had forced its way in too far; and the more it crouched, the broader its back would be. How it must have longed to get at the rat! If the rat had had any generosity, it would have gone back and given itself up. It was not jammed, but only barred in behind and before; and when it was certain not to escape, it might as well have been eaten as starved.” “Perhaps it hoped to be released,” observed James. “I am sure that cat did, if, as I believe, it is the same that I used to take care of and torment,” said Richard. “I plagued the poor thing terribly, I have no doubt; but she never mewed but I answered her. How she must have wondered what had become of me! How piteously she must have cried for me, while she was starving to death here! One touch of mine to those books would have given her her prey and her liberty. Bring her out, Wallace, and the rat too; I shall have them taken care of.” “I think James had better make a sermon about them,” Fanny observed; “something about malice, or greediness, and what comes of them.” “There is matter for many sermons in this room,” observed Richard gravely. The steward touched his hat at this remark, and was uncovered from that moment. The apartments in which no windows were broken were in better condition, though it was at first difficult to breathe in them, and the green stains on the wall forbade Fanny to hope to be immediately established there. Three westerly rooms,—one of which was the drawing-room,—were in better condition than any others, and it was decided that upon these should the science and art of the tradespeople of A—— be first employed.