They lifted the grand piano that maintained its station in one of the unoccupied rooms of the house; but the keys were yellow with age, and many of them soundless--when at last one of them answered to the touch of Ellen's little hand, it sent forth such a ghostly cry that the two children gazed at each other, not knowing whether to cry or to laugh.
Children are like politicians, not easily discouraged; and Ellen's "Come on, Willy," showed that she, by no means, despaired of finding something to amuse them.

They lingered up stairs in their own apartment, William pointing to the moss-covered rock that lay at the foot of the garden.
"Willy, Willy, come! here is something," and Willy followed her through a long passage into a room, lighted only by the rays that found entrance through a broken shutter.

"Only see this," she continued, laying her hand on a crib burdened with a small mattress and pillow; "here too," and she pointed to a little child's hat that hung over it, from which drooped three small plumes.

"Whose can they be ?" "Come out o' here, children," said the nurse, who had been seeking them.
"Your aunt told me not to let you come into this part of the house; this was her nursery once, and her only child died here." The children followed their nurse, and ever afterward the thought of death was connected with that part of the house.

Often as they looked in their aunt's face they remembered the empty crib and the drooping plumes.
Time does not always fly with youth; yet it passed along until Ellen had attained her sixteenth year, and William his eighteenth year.