‘What is it, do you think?’ said Julia.
‘I don’t think it’s anything—I mean, I don’t think it was ever put to any use. That’s what I like about it. It’s a little chunk of history that they’ve forgotten to alter. It’s a message from a hundred years ago, if one knew how to read it.’
‘And that picture over there’—she nodded at the engraving on the opposite wall—’would that be a hundred years old?’
‘More. Two hundred, I dare say. One can’t tell. It’s impossible to discover the age of anything nowadays.’