Page:Jane Austen (Sarah Fanny Malden 1889).djvu/180

 parting cordial, she courtesies off: you listen to the sound of her receding footsteps as long as the last echo can reach you: and when, with fainting spirits, you attempt to fasten your door, you discover, with increased alarm, that it has no lock.'

"'Oh, Mr. Tilney, how frightful! This is just like a book. But it cannot really happen to me. I am sure your housekeeper is not really Dorothy. Well, what then?'

"'Nothing further to alarm, perhaps, may occur the first night. After surmounting your unconquerable horror of the bed, you will retire to rest, and get a few hours unquiet slumber. But on the second, or at farthest the third night after your arrival you will probably have a violent storm. Peals of thunder, so loud as to shake the edifice to its foundation, will roll round the neighbouring mountains; and during the frightful gusts of wind which accompany it you will probably think you discern (for your lamp is not extinguished) one part of the hanging more violently agitated than the rest. Unable, of course, to repress your curiosity in so favourable a moment for indulging it, you will instantly arise, and, throwing your dressing-gown around you, proceed to examine this mystery. After a very short search, you will discover a division in the tapestry, so artfully constructed as to defy the minutest inspection, and, on opening it, a door will immediately appear, which door, being only secured by massy bars and a padlock, you will, after a few efforts, succeed in opening, and, with your lamp in your hand, will pass through it into a small vaulted room.'

"'No, indeed; I should be too much frightened to do any such thing.'

"'What! not when Dorothy has given you to