Here were old trunks, doubtless filled with family antiquities; there was a door fastened with a chain and a padlock--there must be a key to that, or the lock could be broken; in the dim light at the other end of the garret, she could see what appeared to be a piled-up collection of boxes, chests, cases, little and big, and all sorts of old-fashioned articles of use and ornament, doubtless every one of them a treasure.

A long musket, its stock upon the floor, reclined against a little trunk covered with horse-hair, from under the lid of which protruded the ends of some dusty folded papers.
"Oh, how I wish Ralph were here, and that we had a lamp.

I could spend the night here, looking at everything; but I can't do it now with this little candle end." At her feet was a wooden box, the lid of which was evidently unfastened, for it lay at an angle across the top.
"I will look into this one box," she said, "and then I will go down." She knelt down, and with the candle in her right hand, pushed aside the lid with her left.

From the box there grinned at her a human skull, surrounded by its bones.

She started back.
"Uncle Butterwood," she gasped and tried to rise, but her strength and senses left her, and she fell over unconscious, upon the floor.