vast estate. As a matter of fact, I don't know what they contained;
the surprise of the drawers themselves was enough for me. I need not
add that I did not guess the riddle myself; but nothing that I can
call to mind impressed me more than when, one day, my father solved it
for me with his little brass wand. At intervals, afterwards, I was
allowed to work the miracle myself, always with the same thrill of
mysterious delight. The desk was human to me; it was alive.

There were little square covers for the ink and sand-bottles; and on
the under sides of these were painted a pair of faces; very ruddy in
the cheeks they were, with staring eyes and smiling mouths; and one of
them wore a pair of black side-whiskers. They were done by my father,
with oil--colors filched from my mother's paint-box. They seemed to me
portraits of the people who lived in the desk; evidently they enjoyed
their existence hugely. And when I considered that the desk was also
somehow instrumental in the production of stories--such as the Snow
Image--of a delectable and magical character, the importance to my
mind of the whole contrivance may be conceived. When I grew beyond
child's estate, I learned that it had also assisted at the composition
of The Scarlet Letter. If ever there were a haunted writing-desk, this
should have been it; but the ghosts have long since carried it away,
whither I know not.

On the table were two ornaments; one, the finely moulded figure of an
Egyptian in bronze, the wide Egyptian head-dress falling on the
shoulders, the arms lying rigidly at the sides, with fists clinched.
Generations of handling had made it almost black, but the amiable
expression of the little countenance--the figure was about seven
inches tall--greatly endeared it to me. Its feet were pressed close
together on a small round stand; but one day somebody set it down on a