Cosmo stood motionless a while, gazing about him as if, from being wide awake, he suddenly found himself in a dream. Then he turned as if to see how he had got into it. There lay the door, and there was the open passage! He lifted the door: the other side of it was covered with the same paper as the wall, from which it had brought with it several ragged pieces. He went back, crept through, and rejoined his father.
In eager excitement, he told him the discovery he had made.
“I heard the noise of the falling door,” said his father quietly. “I should not wonder now,” he added, “if we discovered a way through to the third block.”
“Oh, father,” said Cosmo with a sigh, “what a comfort this door would have so often been! and now, just as we are like to leave the house forever, we first discover it!”
“How well we have got on without it!” returned his father.
“But what could have made grandfather close it up?”
“There was, I believe, some foolish ghost-story connected with it—perhaps the same old Grannie told you.”
“I wonder grandmamma never spoke of it!”
“My impression is she never cared to refer to it.”
“I daursay she believed it.”