"See here," he said, "some parts of the key are quite oily, but some, inside, are quite dry. We should have oiled the key as well as the lock."

He was right; his small grasp did what ours had failed in. Grunting and groaning still, but forced to obey, the old key woke from its sleep of thirty or forty years and did the work it was made for. And in another minute we had tugged at the door till it moved on its rusty hinges--you will understand afterwards how they came to be no rustier--slowly opening and revealed--

What did it reveal? For a few minutes we were too dazzled to tell--really dazzled--as well as amazed. A perfect flood of light seemed to pour out upon us, and instead of the dingy, musty tool-house we had been expecting, we found ourselves standing at what at first sight appeared like the entrance to some fairy palace of brightness and brilliance. We stood, dazed, rubbing our eyes and looking at each other.

_Was_ it magic? Had we chanced upon some such wonder of old world times as our little heads were stuffed with? Tib--and Gerald too, perhaps--would have been ready to believe it. Had the door there and then shut upon us, leaving us but the remembrance of the vision, they would have lived upon beautiful fancies for the rest of their lives.

But I--practical I--did not long stand bewildered. A slight creak of the door brought me back to common-place.

"Come inside, quick!" I said, pulling at the others--we were all huddled together on the steps--"shut the door, or else some one will see the light through the trees," for I have told you how _very_ dark the tangle is, even on a bright day. "Stay--dare we shut the door? Is there a keyhole on the inside? Oh, yes; and not rusty at all," and quick as thought I drew the key out and fitted it in to the other side; it turned now with ease. "That's right;" and before Tib or Gerald had found out for certain whether they were awake or dreaming, we were all three safe inside the enchanted palace, at liberty to look about us and find out where we really were.

I feel in a way sorry to explain it. But this is not a fairy story; and in the end I think you will allow, when you have come to know the whole, that it _is_ very interesting, perhaps more interesting than a fairy story after all. So I will go on without leaving you in perplexity any more.

The place where we found ourselves was a conservatory: it was prettily built in a high, round-roofed sort of way, so as to catch all the light and sun-heat possible. It was, to begin with, a very bright afternoon; then the shrubbery on our side was _very_ dark; high up in the conservatory there was a band of coloured gla.s.s, rich red, and little bits of every colour at the edge, like a strip of rainbow, through which the light came in gleams of all sorts of beautiful tints. You can easily see how startlingly brilliant it had seemed to us; and besides this, the conservatory itself was not at all in a neglected state. There were few _pots_ of flowers; the shelves were mostly empty; but there were plants growing in earth borders along the sides, which were evidently cared for, as they twined up the walls luxuriantly. And the whole place was heated, though not very much. _That_, you see, was how the door and the lock remained in such good condition.

We found out all these particulars for ourselves by degrees; and gradually we noticed other things. The conservatory had evidently, at some time or other, been a favourite place to sit in. There was a little _very_ old and shaky rustic table, and two or three seats to match; there was a little corner shelf on which still lay two or three old books. After we had got over our first surprise, we were conscious of something about the whole place which made the tears come to our eyes.

But our spirits soon rose again.

"_What_ a bower for the princess!" exclaimed Tib.

I felt quite out of patience with her.

"Rubbish!" I said, "I can't think any more of the princess or any make-up things. This is _far_ more interesting. I want to find out all about what place it is, and why it is shut up and deserted, as it evidently is."

"Perhaps it's been shut up for hundreds of years," suggested Gerald.

"_That's_ rubbish, if you like," answered Tib. "It doesn't look as if anybody lived here, but it's not dirty--scarcely even dusty."

"There must be some other way of getting into it besides our door, then," I said, "for certainly the _door_ hasn't been opened for a great many years. If we look about, perhaps we'll find some other entrance."

At first sight there was no appearance of any, and we began to think the conservatory must, after all, belong to Rosebuds, and that from time to time the gardener _did_ open the door and get in to clean it. Only why, then, was it always locked up? Just as we were feeling quite puzzled, Gerald called out--

"Oh! see here, Tib and Gussie, this is another door--here in the gla.s.s; here's a handle that turns. Why, see, it's a door made of looking-gla.s.s!"

That was why we had not noticed it. It was cleverly managed to imitate panes, like the rest of the conservatory, and it was somewhat in the shade in one corner. There was no lock to this door; it opened at once, and before us we saw a long, rather narrow, covered pa.s.sage, lighted by a skylight roof. It was all growing more and more mysterious; half frightened, but too eager and curious to think of being afraid, on we ran. The pa.s.sage ended in a short flight of steps, at the top of which was another door, a regular proper door this time, with a handle and a lock, but no key in the lock.

"Oh! supposing it's locked," I cried, excitedly; "it will be too bad. We can't find out any more."

But it wasn't. The key, as we afterwards found, was inside, and not turned in the lock. They were evidently not very afraid of robbers. All the years the house had stood empty, no one had ever broken into it; we were the first intruders.

We pressed forward. First we found ourselves in a sort of little ante-room, very small, hardly bigger than a closet, and out of this, through another door, opened a very large and handsome drawing-room. It had a row of windows at one side looking out upon a terrace, and a large bow window at one end, with closely-drawn blinds--we could not see what it looked on to; the floor was of beautifully polished wood, inlaid in a pattern such as you see more often in French houses than in English ones; the two mantelpieces were very high, and beautifully carved, and from the centre of the ceiling hung an immense gilt and crystal chandelier, covered up in muslin. There was not much furniture in the room, and what there was looked stiff and cold: two or three great cabinets against the walls, and some gilt consol-tables, and in one corner a group of sofas, and chairs, and arm-chairs all drawn together, and all in white linen covers. Everything was handsome, and stately, and melancholy; the very feeling of the room told you it had not been really lived in for many a day.

But the one thing which caught our attention was a life-size portrait hanging at the end of the room opposite the bow window. It was the only picture of any kind, and even though we were ignorant children, we could see in a moment that it was a very beautiful one. It represented a young girl, richly dressed in the fashion of a hundred years ago or more, with long-waisted bodice, and skirt of white satin, looped up over an under-one of rose-coloured brocade. She was standing on a terrace--this very terrace we afterwards found--her hat hanging on her arm, and a greyhound beside her. It was all pretty much the same as one often sees in portraits of that time, but her face was _so_ charming!

And immediately we saw it, both Gerald and I exclaimed--

"Oh, Tib, she is exactly like you!" and going close to examine it more particularly, I saw some letters in one corner, and, to my immense surprise, they were those of the name scored out in the old book, "Ornaments Discovered," and of Tib's second name also--"Regina." The initials of the artist--"L.K.," I think--were there also.

"It is my name," said Tib, opening her eyes in astonishment; "how very strange! Can it be the picture of some great-great-grandmother of ours, I wonder? But this is not grandpapa's house. How could any portrait of our family be here?"

We were completely puzzled, but, children-like, we did not think very much more about it. It was such fun to slide up and down the polished floor, or to climb over among the shrouded chairs and sofas, and make ourselves a comfortable nest among them. For it was plain that our discoveries were not to go further--the large double doors of this drawing-room were securely locked from the outside.

We went close up to this door, putting our ears to the keyhole even, and listened, but not the least sound was to be heard.

"The house must be shut up," I said. "There is certainly no one moving about in it."

"Perhaps it is enchanted," said Gerald, in an awe-struck tone. "Perhaps that lady is _really_ alive, and the fairies have fastened her up into that picture till--till--" and he hesitated; his imagination had come to an end of its flight.

Tib and I looked at each other without speaking. We did not snub Gerald as we often did for such speeches--somehow it didn't seem so very impossible! Everything was so strange; the room itself so unlike anything we had ever seen, the mysterious way into it, the silence and desertedness, yet the signs of care; above all, the portrait so wonderfully like Tib, and actually bearing her name. There was no explaining it by anything we could think of or imagine.

"We may as well use it all to make a play of," said Tib, at last, returning to her favourite idea. "We can pretend that the lady in the portrait _is_ the princess something, as Gerald says. Yes, it would be still nicer to make her be enchanted instead of only shut up, and then, Gussie, you must help me to plan how she's to be got out."

"But, Tib," I said, "do you think we can come here again? Don't you think grandpapa would mind, after all he said to us about not making friends, or going into any houses in the village?"

"And are we making friends?" said Tib. "Unless the portrait comes out of its frame some day, and begins talking to us, there's certainly n.o.body else to talk to here."

"Do you think there's n.o.body living in the house?" I said, doubtfully.

"I'm sure there's not. Most likely some one comes to dust it every now and then."

"And don't you remember," said Gerald, "that last Sunday I asked grandpapa if we might come through the door in the wall if we _could_, and he said 'yes'? P'r'aps he knew about this place, and didn't mind if we did come here to play."

"Perhaps," I said; "anyway we can ask him the next time he comes."

"We needn't say anything about it to Mrs. Munt, or nurse," said Tib, decidedly. "As long as we haven't been told _not_ to come, we're not disobeying, and it's much nicer not to ask any one but grandpapa himself."

With that I quite agreed, especially as I felt sure grandpapa himself would like it better. We knew we were doing no mischief; there was n.o.body to speak to, as Tib had said, so we felt quite at ease, and spent a most agreeable afternoon. When we had examined everything there was in the big drawing-room, or saloon, as Tib preferred to call it--and that did not take us very long; there were no curiosities or small ornaments about, as in the Rosebuds drawing-room--we began to plan again about our play story. We arranged it most beautifully, and the portrait was a great help, for it almost gave us another actor, as we could always pretend it was the princess, when Tib was wanted for another person.

And it was such a wonderfully life-like picture--you could really have fancied its expression changed as we talked to it.

But at last we began to get frightened that we should be missed at home if we stayed any longer.

"We must go, Gussie," said Tib, "let us all say good-night to the princess. It is sad to leave you alone here, princess," she went on, turning to the portrait, and speaking in the tone of one of the ladies in the play, who were going to help her to escape, "but, alas, there is no other way to do. If we stayed longer we should only be suspected of plotting, so we must resign ourselves."

"And I dare say you're pretty well accustomed to being left alone by this time. You must be nearly a hundred years old, though you look so young," said Gerald, as he bowed to her. I could not help laughing, though Tib was rather vexed.

"I wish you wouldn't think it clever to turn everything into ridicule, Gerald," but he looked up with such a surprised face that we saw he hadn't been in fun at all.

"There's one thing we'd better do if we want ever to get in here again,"

I said. "We must hide the key of the door leading from the pa.s.sage. I dare say the person who comes to dust will never notice it's not there.

They can't be in the habit of locking it regularly; but it's as well to hide it," and so saying, I took the key out of the lock and slipped it inside a drawer of one of the big cabinets, where it may be lying still, for all I know (I must look, by the by: writing this all out has reminded me of several things I had forgotten).

Then we closed the door carefully and ran down the pa.s.sage to the conservatory again, where we found everything just as we had left it--_our_ key, as we called it, sticking in the lock inside. It was still rather stiff to turn--and the next morning we oiled it again--but we managed to unlock it, and then to lock the door again on the outside.

And Gerald ran off with the key to hide it again in the summer-house; only we wrapped it up in paper before burying it in the fir dust.

"Who would have thought," said Tib, as we ran in, "who _could_ have thought, what we should find this afternoon?"

But our surprises, as you shall hear, were not yet at an end.