Seeing Hugh in the library, she called to him. "Hugh! come with me and see the Treasure Chamber of the Montforts. Don't you want to see the ancestral silver?"
"Of course I do!" said Hugh, laying down his book and coming to join her. "Ancestral silver? My mother went to housekeeping with six teaspoons and a butter-knife, and thought herself rich. Uncle John wanted to send a trunkful of family silver, I have been told, but the Pater refused to be bothered with it. Poor Mother would have been glad enough of it, I fancy, but in those days he was masterful, and bent on roughing it, and would not hear of anything approaching luxury, or even convenience. Where is this wonderful treasury?"
"Come, and you shall see. Uncle John has told me how to find it. Come through this door; here we are in his own study, you see. Now—let me see! I will light this lamp—for the cupboard is dark—while you look and find Inigo Jones."
"Inigo Jones?"
"Yes. A tall blue morocco quarto, about the middle of the fourth shelf of the bookcase behind Uncle John's desk. Ah! I see him!"
Springing forward, Margaret drew the stately volume from its place. "Look!" she cried. "A keyhole. Hugh, isn't this exactly like the 'Mysteries of Udolpho?' 'Inigo Jones' is his joke, you see, or somebody's joke. Do you mind if I turn the key, Hugh?"
"Turn away!" said Hugh, much amused at the excitement of his staid little cousin.
With a trembling hand Margaret turned the key, and gave a pull, as she had been told. A section of the bookcase, with its load of books, swung slowly forward, revealing a dark opening. Margaret stepped in, and Hugh followed, holding the lamp aloft.
"Well, upon my word!" he said. "I never heard of anything like this, out of the 'Arabian Nights.'"
Margaret was looking about her, too much absorbed for words. The Iron Cupboard was a recess some ten feet deep and seven or eight wide, lined with shelves. These shelves were literally packed with silver, some in boxes, much in bags, glimmering in the half-light like dwarfish ghosts; but the greater part uncovered, glittering in tarnished splendor wherever the lamplight fell. Rows upon rows of teapots, tall and squat, round and oval, chased, hammered, and plain; behind them, coffee-pots looking down, in every possible device. There were silver pitchers and silver bowls; porringers and fruit-dishes, salvers and platters. Such an array as might dazzle the eyes of any silversmith of moderate ambition.