All this seemed quite to the purpose on entering a new house which was so excellent a background.
"What a queer, quaint, picturesque room!" she went on, looking about her.

"I like these old embroidered chairs, and the garlands on the wainscot, and the pictures that may be anything.

That one with the ribs--nothing but ribs and darkness--I should think that is Spanish, mamma." "Oh, Gwendolen!" said the small Isabel, in a tone of astonishment, while she held open a hinged panel of the wainscot at the other end of the room.
Every one, Gwendolen first, went to look.

The opened panel had disclosed the picture of an upturned dead face, from which an obscure figure seemed to be fleeing with outstretched arms.

"How horrible!" said Mrs.Davilow, with a look of mere disgust; but Gwendolen shuddered silently, and Isabel, a plain and altogether inconvenient child with an alarming memory, said-- "You will never stay in this room by yourself, Gwendolen." "How dare you open things which were meant to be shut up, you perverse little creature ?" said Gwendolen, in her angriest tone.