The next morning the good woman of the house had occasion to go down into the cellar. Her soap barrel, pork barrels, and probably cider barrels were there. A dark place is an old-time New England cellar,—dark and damp, with an earthy smell. Lights burned low there. Our good woman probably passed around the foundation walls of the great chimney, where was a flue for ashes, passed the potato-bins and turnip covers, and, with peering eyes, looked down on one of the many platforms for barrels. Cellars were haunted places. There was an awful story of a woman who murdered her husband, and hid his body under the ash barrel, that had taken hold of popular imagination in those revengeful times, and most people thought of it as they made their uncertain ways around the cellars. It was all poky and still, grewsome and tomb-like. Our good woman heard a noise. That was not strange. Cats and rats dwelt in the cellar, and the latter came out of their hiding-places when the former were not at home. She was ill prepared for what followed. There arose up before her an awful object. Whatever ghost-stories she may have heard by kitchen fires in the long evenings, she had never had any account of anything like this. Its body was like that of Apollyon, as represented in the never-to-be-forgotten picture in the “Pilgrim’s Progress.” But it wore the feathers of a goose. _Erupit! evasit!_ Our good woman ascended the cellar stairs with a celerity that spoke well for the power of latent nervous force. The dreadful figure followed her, begging for mercy, and confessing that he was Darby the Impostor. The poor woman supplied his wants, and probably provided him with a suit of clothes, when he disappeared from society forever. [Illustration: MADISON STREET.] [Illustration: THE LAKE FRONT.] CHAPTER IV. THE STORY OF THE BUILDING OF THE WHITE CITY. OUT of this legendary and story-telling atmosphere, the three Marlowes passed through the country in beautiful June, and found themselves, in the longest days of the year, in that wonder-city of the new world,—Chicago. “The first story that we will have to hear,” said Mr. Marlowe, “will be that of the Fair itself.” THE STORY OF THE FAIR. If ever there was a man with the heart and intelligence to welcome the world, it is Judge Bonney, whose generous spirit and hearty words millions of people will remember. As the leading mind of the Exposition’s Auxiliary Congresses, as many as possible of the delegates to the many Congresses met him, and the questions which he answered in the Art Palace in Chicago, would have filled many Bibles. We hope that he took a long rest after the close of the Exposition, for no man ever better earned such a right.