We did not see the room: and yet I have no doubt there is such an one; and ever after, when I have thought of the splendid castle towering in the midst of shady trees, under which the dappled deer are browsing; of the terraces gleaming with statues, and bright with a hundred thousand flowers; of the bridges and shining fountains and rivers wherein the castle windows reflect their festive gleams, when the halls are filled with happy feasters, and over the darkling woods comes the sound of music;--always, I say, when I think of Castle Bluebeard:--it is to think of that dark little closet, which I know is there, and which the lordly owner opens shuddering--after midnight--when he is sleepless and must go unlock it, when the palace is hushed, when beauties are sleeping around him unconscious, and revellers are at rest.

O Mrs.Housekeeper: all the other keys hast thou: but that key thou hast not! Have we not all such closets, my jolly friend, as well as the noble Marquis of Carabas?
At night, when all the house is asleep but you, don't you get up and peep into yours?
When you in your turn are slumbering, up gets Mrs.Brown from your side, steals downstairs like Amina to her ghoul, clicks open the secret door, and looks into her dark depository.

Did she tell you of that little affair with Smith long before she knew you?
Psha! who knows any one save himself alone?
Who, in showing his house to the closest and dearest, doesn't keep back the key of a closet or two?
I think of a lovely reader laying down the page and looking over at her unconscious husband, asleep, perhaps, after dinner.
Yes, madam, a closet he hath: and you, who pry into everything, shall never have the key of it.

I think of some honest Othello pausing over this very sentence in a railroad carriage, and stealthily gazing at Desdemona opposite to him, innocently administering sandwiches to their little boy--I am trying to turn off the sentence with a joke, you see--I feel it is growing too dreadful, too serious.
And to what, pray, do these serious, these disagreeable, these almost personal observations tend?
To this simply, that Charles Honeyman, the beloved and popular preacher, the elegant divine to whom Miss Blanche writes sonnets, and whom Miss Beatrice invites to tea; who comes with smiles on his lip, gentle sympathy in his tones, innocent gaiety in his accent; who melts, rouses, terrifies in the pulpit; who charms over the tea-urn and the bland bread-and-butter: Charles Honeyman has one or two skeleton closets in his lodgings, Walpole Street, Mayfair; and many a wakeful night, whilst Mrs.Ridley, his landlady, and her tired husband, the nobleman's major-domo, whilst the lodger on the first floor, whilst the cook and housemaid and weary little bootboy are at rest (mind you, they have all got their closets, which they open with their skeleton-keys); he wakes up, and looks at the ghastly occupant of that receptacle.

One of the Reverend Charles Honeyman's grisly night-haunters is--but stop; let us give a little account of the lodgings, and of some of the people frequenting the same.
First floor, Mr.Bagshot, Member for a Norfolk borough.