Then came the surprise. She had expected resistance, and prepared to cope with it. To her utter amazement, there was a ripping, tearing sound, and she found herself suddenly prone upon the floor of the most mysterious room in the house! The reason for this being that the door at the top was covered on the inner side with only a layer or two of wall-paper, and no article of furniture happened to stand in front of it. Consequently it had yielded with ease at the tremendous shove Joyce had given it, and she found herself thus forcibly and ignominiously propelled into the apartment. "My!" she gasped, sitting up and dusting her hands, "but that was sudden! I don't care, though! I'm not a bit hurt, and--we're _in_!" They were indeed "in"! The mysterious, locked room was at last to yield up its secret to them. They experienced a delicious thrill of expectation, as, with their candles raised above their heads, they peered eagerly about. Now, what they had expected to find within that mysterious room, they could not perhaps have explained with any definiteness. Once they stood within the threshold, however, they became slowly conscious of a vague disappointment. Here was nothing so very strange, after all! The room appeared to be in considerable disorder, and articles of clothing, books, and boyish belongings were tossed about, as in a hurry of packing. But beyond this, there was nothing much out of the ordinary about it. "Well," breathed Cynthia at length. "Is _this_ what we've been making all the fuss about!" "Wait!" said Joyce. "You can't see everything just at one glance. Let's look about a little. Oh, what a dreadful hole we've made in the wall-paper! Well, it can't be helped now, and it's the only damage we've done." They commenced to tiptoe about the room, glancing curiously at its contents. It was plainly a boy's room. A pair of fencing-foils hung crossed on one wall, a couple of boxing-gloves on another. College trophies decorated the mantel. On a center-table stood a photograph or daguerreotype in a large oval frame. When Cynthia had wiped away the veil of dust that covered it, with the dust-cloth she had thoughtfully tucked in her belt, the girls bent over it. "Oh, Cynthia!" cried Joyce. "Here they are--the Lovely Lady and her boy. He must have been about twelve then. What funny clothes he wore! But isn't he handsome! And see how proudly she looks at him. Cynthia, how _could_ he bear to leave this behind! I shouldn't have thought he'd ever want to part with it." "Probably he went in such a hurry that he couldn't think of everything, and left this by mistake. Or he may even have had another copy," Cynthia added in a practical after-thought. Garments of many descriptions, and all of old-time cut, were flung across the bed, and on the floor near it lay an open valise, half packed with books.