CHAPTER XVI.
DOROTHY'S INITIATION.
There was much about the castle itself to interest Dorothy.

She had already begun the attempt to gather a clear notion of its many parts and their relations, but the knowledge of the building could not well advance more rapidly than her acquaintance with its inmates, for little was to be done from the outside alone, and she could not bear to be met in strange places by strange people.

So that part of her education--I use the word advisedly, for to know all about the parts of an old building may do more for the education of minds of a certain stamp than the severest course of logic--must wait upon time and opportunity.
Every day, often twice, sometimes thrice, she would visit the stable-yard, and have an interview first with the chained Marquis, and then with her little horse.

After that she would seldom miss looking in at the armourer's shop, and spending a few minutes in watching him at his work, so that she was soon familiar with all sorts of armour favoured in the castle.

The blacksmiths' and the carpenters' shops were also an attraction to her, and it was not long before she knew all the artisans about the place.