"I'm afraid you will not find any oak chests," said Mr. Rutledge, discouragingly. "Oh! yes, we will," cried Grace, "chests, and crannies, and closets, and wardrobes, and trap-doors without number. A regiment of soldiers might be hid away in this house and nobody the wiser." Everybody was in the spirit of it now, and it was useless to oppose. "Who shall hide first?" demanded Grace. "Oh, your cousin, of course!" cried the captain. "She proposed the game." I was voted in by acclamation. "And you must take somebody with you, it will make it more exciting, but you must hide in separate places," added Grace. "Very well; the captain must go out with me, and you must all go into the parlor, and promise, on your honor, to stay there five minutes by the clock, and then we give you leave to find us." "We promise," said Ellerton; "but remember, you are to hide somewhere in the house, and to surrender yourselves in half an hour if you are not found before." "Always provided," said the captain, shutting the parlor-doors upon them, "that we're not smothered in some old chest in the meantime." CHAPTER XXXVII. "Sweetest lips that ever were kissed, Brightest eyes that ever have shone, May sigh and whisper, and _he_ not list, Or look away, and never be missed Long or ever a month be gone." "Where shall we go?" said the captain, in a whisper, as we paused in the hall irresolutely. "What do you think of the dining-room, behind the tall clock for one of us?" The captain shook his head. "They'll look there the first thing; it will not do. But in the second story, there's a huge old wardrobe that I've noticed at the north end, that would be a capital place for one." "Yes, I know where you mean, but I think it's locked, and we haven't the key, and it would take too long to hunt up the housekeeper and get it. There's the lower part of a bookcase in the library empty. Captain McGuffy, if you only could get into it! Not even Mr. Rutledge knows about it. Mrs. Roberts only cleared the books out of it last week, and you'd be as safe as possible. Do try if you can't arrange it, and I'll go somewhere upstairs; I know a place." Captain McGuffy consented, and we hurried to the library. The hiding-place was not so large as I had fancied, but still my companion agreed to risk it. He doubled up like a jack-knife; it was perfectly wonderful to me how he ever got his long limbs into so small a compass. "Are you comfortable?" I asked, smothering a laugh. "Don't shut the door tight," he whispered, hoarsely. "I can't stand this long."