a child when listening to a tale of deep interest--who has not
often heard the artless and eager question, 'Is it true?'"

From Horace Walpole, Mrs. Radcliffe, Scott, Victor Hugo, Dumas,
Lytton, Ainsworth, Le Fanu, and Mrs. Henry Wood, down to the
latest up-to-date novelists of to-day, the secret chamber (an
ingenious _necessity_ of the "good old times") has afforded
invaluable "property"--indeed, in many instances the whole vitality
of a plot is, like its ingenious opening, hinged upon the masked
wall, behind which lay concealed what hidden mysteries, what
undreamed-of revelations! The thread of the story, like Fair
Rosamond's silken clue, leads up to and at length reveals the
buried secret, and (unlike the above comparison in this instance)
all ends happily!

Bulwer Lytton honestly confesses that the spirit of romance in his
novels "was greatly due to their having been written at my ancestral
home, Knebworth, Herts. How could I help writing romances," he
says, "after living amongst the secret panels and hiding-places
of our dear old home? How often have I trembled with fear at
the sound of my own footsteps when I ventured into the picture
gallery! How fearfully have I glanced at the faces of my ancestors
as I peered into the shadowy abysses of the 'secret chamber.' It
was years before I could venture inside without my hair literally
bristling with terror."

What would _Woodstock_ be without the mysterious picture,
_Peveril of the Peak_ without the sliding panel, the Castlewood
of _Esmond_ without Father Holt's concealed apartments,
_Ninety-Three, Marguerite de Valois, The Tower of London, Guy