"Whither have you led me now?" inquired Middleton.
"Look round," said Alice. "Is there nothing here that you ought to
recognize?--nothing that you kept the memory of, long ago?"
He looked round the room again and again, and at last, in a somewhat
shadowy corner, he espied an old cabinet made of ebony and inlaid with
pearl; one of those tall, stately, and elaborate pieces of furniture that
are rather articles of architecture than upholstery; and on which a
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.
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