higher skill, feeling, and genius than now is ever employed on such
things, was expended. Alice drew near the stately cabinet and threw wide
the doors, which, like the portals of a palace, stood between two
pillars; it all seemed to be unlocked, showing within some beautiful old
pictures in the panel of the doors, and a mirror, that opened a long
succession of mimic halls, reflection upon reflection, extending to an
interminable nowhere.

"And what is this?" said Middleton,--"a cabinet? Why do you draw my
attention so strongly to it?"

"Look at it well," said she. "Do you recognize nothing there? Have you
forgotten your description? The stately palace with its architecture,
each pillar with its architecture, those pilasters, that frieze; you
ought to know them all. Somewhat less than you imagined in size, perhaps;
a fairy reality, inches for yards; that is the only difference. And you
have the key?"

And there then was that palace, to which tradition, so false at once and
true, had given such magnitude and magnificence in the traditions of the
Middleton family, around their shifting fireside in America. Looming afar
through the mists of time, the little fact had become a gigantic vision.
Yes, here it was in miniature, all that he had dreamed of; a palace of
four feet high!

"You have the key of this palace," said Alice; "it has waited--that is,
its secret and precious chamber has, for you to open it, these three
hundred years. Do you know how to find that secret chamber?"

Middleton, still in that dreamy mood, threw open an inner door of the