Explore "An Awfully Big Adventure" by Bartimeus on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The following morning found the children in a glow of pleasurable anticipation which their landlady, on learning of the impending visit, cheerfully fanned to fever pitch. She had been a housemaid "up at the house" in her youth, and held the children spellbound with her description of its glories.
"There's armour there enough for a regiment of soldiers," she said with fine disregard of modern military equipment, "and pictures by the mile. Chimney-vases hundreds of years old, worth their weight in gold, standing about in corners like dirt. Mind, too," she added, with a ring of sombre reminiscence in her tones, "they break if you so much as look at 'em. Don't forget to see the tapestry that was wove by a queen and her ladies, and if Mr. Graeme's there, get him to show you the secret passage -- there's one behind a sliding panel in Sir Malcolm's library."