As they stepped across the threshold both men involuntarily took off the hats they had worn during their investigation below. Perhaps neither of them was conscious of the act, or that it was a tribute of respect to the unknown Reinette, who was in the thoughts of both as they stood in the great silent, gloomy room, from which the light was excluded by the heavy shutters which had withstood the ravages of time. This had evidently been the guest chamber during the life of Mrs. Hetherton, and the furniture was of solid mahogany and of the most massive kind, while the faded hangings around the high-post bed were of the heaviest silken damask. But the atmosphere was close and stifling, and Mr. Beresford drew back a step or two while Phil pressed on until he ran against the sharp corner of the bureau and uttered a little cry of pain. “For Heaven’s sake come out of this,” Mr. Beresford exclaimed. “Let’s give the whole thing up, and let Mr. Hetherton fix his own old rookery. We can never make it decent.” “Just hold on a minute,” said Phil, making his way to a window, “wait till I let in a little air and light. There,” he continued, as he opened window after window and pushed back the heavy shutters, one of which dropped from the hinges to the ground. “There, that is better, and does not smell so like an old cheese cupboard, and look, Beresford, just see what a magnificent view. Ten villages, as I live, and almost as many ponds, and the river, and the hills, with old Wachusett in the distance.” It was indeed a lovely landscape spread out before them, and Phil, who had an artist’s eye for the beautiful, enjoyed it to the full, and declared it as fine as anything he had seen in Switzerland, where he went once with his father just before he entered college. Mr. Beresford was, however, too much absorbed in the duties devolving upon him to care for views, and Phil himself soon came back to the room and examined it minutely, from the carpet, molding on the floor, to the rotten hangings on the bed, which he began at last to pull down, thereby raising a cloud of dust, from which Mr. Beresford beat a hasty retreat. “I tell you what,” he said, “it’s of no kind of use. I shall wash my hands of the entire job, and let Miss Reinette arrange her own room.”