the window, and threw back the blinds. The sunlight streamed in, as if
it, too, were eager to see what shrouded treasures were kept secluded
here. Probably the blinds had not been thrown back since Gran'ther
Scraper died.

The parlour was scarcely less grim than the kitchen, though there was a
difference in its grimness. Seven chairs stood against the wall, like
seven policemen with their hands behind their backs; a table crouched in
the middle, its legs bent as if to spring. The boy John considered the
table a monster, transformed by magic into its present shape, and likely
to be released at any moment, and to leap at the unwary intruder. Its
faded cover, with two ancient ink-blots which answered for eyes,
fostered this idea, which was a disquieting one. On the wall hung two
silver coffin-plates in a glass case, testifying that Freeborn Scraper,
and Elmira his wife, had been duly buried, and that their coffins had
presented a good appearance at the funeral. But the glory of the room,
in the boy John's eyes, was the cabinet of shells which stood against
the opposite wall. He had once thought this the chief ornament of the
world; he knew better now, but still he regarded its treasures with awe
and veneration, and looked to see the expression of delight which should
overspread the features of his new friend at sight of it. What, then,
was his amazement to see his new friend pass over the cabinet with a
careless glance, as if it were the most ordinary thing in the world!
Evidently, it was not shells that he had come to see; and the boy grew
more and more mystified. Suddenly the dark eyes lightened; the whole
face flashed into keen attention. What had the Skipper seen? Nothing,
apparently, but the cupboard in the corner, the old cupboard where Mr.
Scraper kept his medicines. The old man had sent John to this cupboard
once, when he himself was crippled with rheumatism, to fetch him a
bottle of the favourite remedy of the day. John remembered its inward