60 The Old Stone Hotise. 



down stairs, but the general litter of the garret tells more 

 of the family history than all the other rooms combined. 

 The garret is the private museum of the homestead, and if 

 you can see it in all its completeness you will know how 

 long the family have dwelt in the mansion. The parlor 

 makes its contributions from time to time, and so keeps 

 fresh and new ; the kitchen sends its old pots and pans, 

 and many papers are piled there that are thought too 

 interesting to be thrown away, but which lay unread and 

 forgotten. 



So we searched diligently in the litter ; the floor was 

 strewn with scores of copies of The Albion, many of them 

 stained with yellow lines by the rain that had beaten in 

 through the roof, and all of them imbrowned by time. We 

 turned their pages — read of the cholera in England and 

 Scotland, of the last illness of Goethe, and perused the 

 reviews of the latest novels. There is nothing that loses so 

 much of its pith with the years as political discussions and 

 events. We cannot feel all the glow of the times. We 

 reverence the story-teller, for it is the clothing in words 

 that so often makes one fact, or the life of one man, stand 

 out more noticeably in the past than another. The old 

 news in the Albion is read in a different sense from that 

 which was first intended ; we view it now as we would the 

 account of the war of Inisthona. The " total overthrow 

 and utter prostration of the revolutionists " has often been 

 told, and that Sheriff Dugan restored order after Mr. 

 McKenzie and Mr. Shannon were pelted with eggs is not 

 new to history. 



Turning the pages, we came to a piece of purple silk 



