His eyes were, however, resting at the moment on the only objects at all out of the common that the dining-room contained.

One was a singular glass case over the fireplace, within which were some large mediaeval door-keys, black with rust and age; and the others were two full-length oil portraits in the costume of the end of the last century--so out of all proportion to the size of the room they occupied that they almost reached to the floor.
'Those originally belonged to the castle yonder,' said Miss De Stancy, or Charlotte, as her father called her, noticing Somerset's glance at the keys.

'They used to unlock the principal entrance-doors, which were knocked to pieces in the civil wars.

New doors were placed afterwards, but the old keys were never given up, and have been preserved by us ever since.' 'They are quite useless--mere lumber--particularly to me,' said Sir William.
'And those huge paintings were a present from Paula,' she continued.
'They are portraits of my great-grandfather and mother.

Paula would give all the old family pictures back to me if we had room for them; but they would fill the house to the ceilings.' Sir William was impatient of the subject.