There's no knowing what may happen." Mrs.Pullet shook her head slowly at this last serious consideration, which determined her to single out a particular key.
"I'm afraid it'll be troublesome to you getting it out, sister," said Mrs.Tulliver; "but I _should_ like to see what sort of a crown she's made you." Mrs.Pullet rose with a melancholy air and unlocked one wing of a very bright wardrobe, where you may have hastily supposed she would find a new bonnet.

Not at all.

Such a supposition could only have arisen from a too-superficial acquaintance with the habits of the Dodson family.
In this wardrobe Mrs.Pullet was seeking something small enough to be hidden among layers of linen,--it was a door-key.
"You must come with me into the best room," said Mrs.Pullet.
"May the children come too, sister ?" inquired Mrs.Tulliver, who saw that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather eager.
"Well," said aunt Pullet, reflectively, "it'll perhaps be safer for 'em to come; they'll be touching something if we leave 'em behind." So they went in procession along the bright and slippery corridor, dimly lighted by the semi-lunar top of the window which rose above the closed shutter; it was really quite solemn.

Aunt Pullet paused and unlocked a door which opened on something still more solemn than the passage,--a darkened room, in which the outer light, entering feebly, showed what looked like the corpses of furniture in white shrouds.
Everything that was not shrouded stood with its legs upward.

Lucy laid hold of Maggie's frock, and Maggie's heart beat rapidly.
Aunt Pullet half-opened the shutter and then unlocked the wardrobe, with a melancholy deliberateness which was quite in keeping with the funereal solemnity of the scene.