“But this must lead to the attic,” she reasoned. “I may as well go on up as to go—down.”
Cobwebs a-plenty here. She jerked back from their tangles, fearing spiders and other crawling things.
“Oh,” she exclaimed. “I do wish I had not come this way. It’s so—spooky!”
At every step the darkness increased and the light dwindled. Reaching a good-sized platform, Nora stood, thankful to draw an easy breath. She could just about see that she had only one short flight of steps to go to reach a door.
“I would never have believed this house was so high,” she pondered. “I feel as if I came up from a cellar to a tower.”
Then, resolutely, the pilgrim started on again. Only a few steps and she found herself face to face with two doors. They were unpainted and each stood at angles from the landing.
“Which?” she asked instinctively; for, while she wanted to reach the attic, she was careful to remember which way she had come in this crooked, gloomy place. Besides this, the attic was a mysterious part of that pretty house, Nora realized.
“It must be all right to go in here—all of the rooms are ours and Cousin Ted said they were all kept clean.”
With this caution she pushed open one of the unpainted doors and stepped inside.
She gasped! The place was in almost total darkness!