All the rest of the younger population had deserted the state apartments, and were to be heard in the distance, clattering along the passages, banging doors, bawling and shouting to each other, with freaks of such laughter as had never awakened those echoes during the Barnes’ tenure, but Jessie returned not; and her aunt, going in quest of her up a broad flight of shallow stairs, found herself in a grand gallery, with doors leading to various corridors and stairs. She called, and the tramp of the boots of youth began to descend on her, with shouts of “All right!” and downstairs flowed the troop, beginning with Jock, and ending with Armine and Babie, each with some breathless exclamation, all jumbled together—
Jock. “Oh, mother! Stunning! Lots of bats fast asleep.”
Johnny. “Rats! rats!”
Rob. “A billiard-table.”
Joe. “Mother Carey, may Pincher kill your rats?”
Armine. “One wants a clue of thread to find one’s way.”
Janet. “I’ve counted five-and-thirty bedrooms already, and that’s not all.”
Babie. “And there’s a little copper tea-kettle in each. May my dolls have one?”
Bobus. “There’s nothing else in most of them; and, my eyes! how musty they smell.”
Elvira. “I will have the room with the big red bed, with a gold crown at the top.”