"There is nothing in this house," said he, "better worth your attention
than that cabinet.' Consider its plan; it represents a stately mansion,
with pillars, an entrance, with a lofty flight of steps, windows, and
everything perfect. Examine it well."

There was such an emphasis in the old man's way of speaking that
Middleton turned suddenly round from all that he had been looking at, and
fixed his whole attention on the cabinet; and strangely enough, it seemed
to be the representative, in small, of something that he had seen in a
dream. To say the truth, if some cunning workman had been employed to
copy his idea of the old family mansion, on a scale of half an inch to a
yard, and in ebony and ivory instead of stone, he could not have produced
a closer imitation. Everything was there.

"This is miraculous!" exclaimed he. "I do not understand it."

"Your friend seems to be curious in these matters," said Mr. Eldredge
graciously. "Perhaps he is of some trade that makes this sort of
manufacture particularly interesting to him. You are quite at liberty, my
friend, to open the cabinet and inspect it as minutely as you wish. It is
an article that has a good deal to do with an obscure portion of our
family history. Look, here is the key, and the mode of opening the outer
door of the palace, as we may well call it." So saying, he threw open the
outer door, and disclosed within the mimic likeness of a stately entrance
hall, with a floor chequered of ebony and ivory. There were other doors
that seemed to open into apartments in the interior of the palace; but
when Mr. Eldredge threw them likewise wide, they proved to be drawers and
secret receptacles, where papers, jewels, money, anything that it was
desirable to store away secretly, might be kept.