— unimaginable wealth! I could fancy that, when I was a child, or a youth, that portrait had spoken, and told me a rich secret, or had held forth its hand, with the written record of hidden opulence. But those old matters are so dim with me, nowadays! What could this dream have been?”

“Perhaps I can recall it,” answered Holgrave. “See! There are a hundred chances to one that no person, unacquainted with the secret, would ever touch this spring.”

“A secret spring!” cried Clifford. “Ah, I remember Now! I did discover it, one summer afternoon, when I was idling and dreaming about the house, long, long ago.

But the mystery escapes me.”

The artist put his finger on