Publisher's Synopsis
One of the earliest scenes I can remember withperfect distinctness is this. My sister and I, stilldenizens of the nursery, had come down to take ourtea with good old Rebecca Torkill, the Maloryhousekeeper, in the room we called the cedarparlour. It is a long and rather sombre room, withtwo tall windows looking out upon the shadowycourt-yard. There are on the wall some dingyportraits, whose pale faces peep out, as it were, through a background of black fog, from the canvas;and there is one, in better order than the others, of agrave man in the stately costume of James the First, which hangs over the mantel-piece. As a child Iloved this room; I loved the half-decipherablepictures; it was solemn and even gloomy, but it waswith the delightful gloom and solemnity of one ofRebecca Torkill's stories of castles, giants, andgoblins.It was evening now, with a stormy, red sky in thewest. Rebecca and we two children were seatedround the table, sipping our tea, eating hot cake, and8listening to her oft-told tale, entitled the Knight ofthe Black Castl
