Edwin thought he would try a tune. He wound up the mechanism, pressed over the starting lever, and the prickly cylinder began slowly to revolve. It made a bad start; for no one knows how many years ago it had been stopped in the middle of a tune. Then, having finished the broken cadence, it burst gaily into the song called “Mousetraps for Sale,” a pathetic ballad which may have sounded sprightly in the ears of young people fifty years ago, but in this strange room was invested with a pathetic and faded quality which made Edwin wish it would stop. There was no need for him to pull back the lever, for the musical box, as though guessing his wishes, suddenly petered out with a sort of metallic growl. Edwin laughed in spite of himself, at this peculiar noise, and hearing the echo of his own laugh turned to find himself staring into the jealous eyes of a portrait of a Victorian gentleman whom he took to be the late Mr. Barrow, for whose delectation, over his glass of punch, the instrument had been purchased. Edwin began to feel a little uneasy. The feeling annoyed him. “I’m silly to be like this,” he said to himself. “I suppose it’s the uncertainty. . . . Oh, I wish I knew. . . .” He took refuge in the bookcase, from which he extracted, to his great delight, the complete works of Shenstone in two volumes, bound in slippery calf and published by Dodsley in the year seventeen-seventy. . . . The books were in a beautiful state of preservation. Edwin doubted if they had ever been read. Mr. Barrow, no doubt, had purchased them simply for their local interest. With a final glance at Mr. Barrow’s portrait, in a faint hope that he approved of his choice, Edwin let down the blinds, so that no light penetrated the room but a single gleam reflected from the glass pane of a wool-worked fire-guard that hung from a bracket at the side of the fireplace. With a shiver he re-locked the door. . . . When he reached the garden with his Shenstone, the light was failing. “You were a long time, Edwin,” said Mrs. Barrow. “Yes, wasn’t he?” echoed Miss Beecock. “I’m afraid it is time Mrs. Barrow was going in.” Quietly, and with a leisure that seemed to presume an endless placidity of existence, the old ladies folded their work, sighed, and recrossed the lawn towards the house. In a little time came supper: biscuits and milk on which a thick cream had been rising all day. Then Mrs. Barrow kissed him good-night. He felt her face on his cheek: a little chilly, but lax and very soft. Miss Beecock lighted him to bed with a candle in a highly-polished brass candlestick. The sheets were cool and of old linen. The bedroom smelt of apples. With the air of “Mousetraps for Sale” in his head, and a sleepy consciousness of ancient creaking timbers, Edwin fell asleep.