The Dorset County Express and Agricultural Gazette.
Dorchester, Dorset, England, 1874-04-28 00:00:00

MIND OF LYWFON ORM..

Lynton Craig had been for mapy long ma=
the family residence of the /lads of Dane.
said it was haunted. The grove Was called the
Lady's Walk, and the legend of the house told how
a beautiful lady still wandered there, weeping,
and wringing her hands for the wicked deed she
had done.

When Roland, the tenth'Earl, came to his estate.
he had only just reached his twenty-first year.
His parents had been dead for some years, and
he gratified a wish that he had long entertained :
that of going abroad, and seeing something of con-
tinental life. Ho went almost alone, only taking
1 it h him his valet, Martin, a man about forty years
of age, who had attended upon the young Earl
from his childhood. Ho was absent throe years;
and at the end of that time my aunt received •
letter, saying that he should return at such a date,
and briefly announcing the fact of his
ordered that everything should be prepared for
Lady Deno.
My lady was kind, in her haughty, careless way.
The servants, one and all, obeyed her promptly
and implicitly; there was something in the light
of those dark eyes that enforced instant obedience.
rho only person who ever spoke against the Coun-
tess was a man named John Moore, the hall porter;
and he seemed to have taken a violent disMie to
his mistress.

All the nobility and gentry of the neighbourhood
called upon her. She soon became very popular,
and there was nothing Lady Dens liked half so
well as gaiety and admiration. She liked splen-
dour and magnificence too. No lady in the county
out-stripped her in beauty.
Three years passed by, and they ripened as they
went the wonderful beauty of Lady Dene. No
children came, to make the En.rl's heart glad; but
he loved his wife none the less. Ho never seemed
to weary of watching her, and trying to make her
happy. Day by day my lady grew more and more
absorbed in a round of gaiety. Balls, parties, pic-
nics, charades, private theatricals—nothing came
amiss to her; and the Hall was always crowded
with visitors, Lady Done being acknowelciged the
queen of every fete.
One day it chanced that my aunt was summoned
to my lad's room. Some new and important, visitors
were coming, awl great preparations were to be
made fur them. I am not sure, but I believe the
guest expected was one of royal blood.
While she was talking to my aunt, her maid,
Rosina, entered the room. He face was wild, and
almost livid. She held a letter in hex hand, which
she gave to Lady Dene, saying something as ohs
did' so in her quick Italian tongue.
Lady Deno opened the letter. As she read it, •
doadly pallor overspread her face, and a wild
horror came into her eyes. The letter fell from
her trembling hands, and Rosin, clutched at it
eagerly, looked it through, thou tore it into a
thousand piecee.
lady Deno could not recover herself. Her faoe,
so deadly white, quivered with emotion. My aunt
could not understand so strange& scene.
" My lady is not well," said Rosins, at last.
Will you go, Mrs. Gray, and inquire from the
hall-porter who brought that letter? My lady
expects a jeweller from town, and thinks it may
have been him.'

All that day Lady Dena remained shut up in her
room; she took no share in the brilliant gaiety
going on in the llall. The Earl was inconsolable,
bemuse his lady was ill; and those who saw her
white face did not doubt that she was ill, as she
said.

Three days passed, and Lady Dens atill kept her
room—the dreadful pallor still shaded over her
face. One evening she was better, and left her
room to sit in a Imaudoir that the young Earl had
arranged for her. That evening the same gentle-
man who 11.1 d deliveied the letter, called again, and
much to the surprise of John the porter, my lady
sent orders that he was to be admitted.

It so happened that Lord Done. accompanied
by most of his visitors, had gone that night to a
ball given at Brentwood Castle. lie had been most
nnwilling to leave his wife; but she declared she
wa:4 better, and was so anxious about his going
that, to avoid annoying or irritating her, he con.
vented, much against his will.

Later in the' evening. the foreign gentleman
called again, and by my lady's orders, was admitted.
liosina met him at the hall-door, and conducted
him to the room where her mistress sat. It so
happened that none of tho household saw or ob.
served him.

I will let the gentleman out, said Roaina,
with a very amiable smile, to the porter. " You
need Dot wait."

Lint the inan's curiosity was aroused—he wished
to see the strange-h,oking wan again; besides, he
would have done or suffered anything to oppose
and thaart Rouina.

All right," he replied carelessly, "Then I will
go to my.supper."
lie noted the look of relief that spread over the
dark face of the waiting-maid.
" I nut not so easily duped," he said to himself.
"%'o,, and your mistress, tee, rei Imps, s mit ins
out of the road; but I shall stay and watch. I
should like to see more of my lady'. visitor."
That night—it was long after midnight—the
Italian maid went through the hall, and saw the
prier still there.
" I'hat are you sitting up for?" she asked.
"I am waiting to let Lady Dene's visitor out,"
lie replied.
" lie is gone," sho said. "I let him out myself,
while you were at supper."
"1 have not been to my supper yet," he snswered.
It is waiting for me now.'
For one moment he saw her qua, as though she
had r.eceived a sudden blow.

'I let him out" she said again. "I cannoksay
where you were."
"1 have never left the hall since he came," per-
sisted the man.

" Ile went through the shrubbery, she said, by
the western door."

"That could not be, "persisted the porter," for I
have the key."
_ . .

What rerilly passed that night can never be
known now. John Moore thought the matter so
mysterious that when the Earl came home he told
him of it. But when he named it to his wife she
laughed; and Rosina declared, contemptuously,
that the porter had drunk tee much, and was
asleep greater part of the evening. However it
was, no one had seen the gentleman who entered
that night leave the house again.
But from that day. • dreeflful change came over
Lady Done. lier waiting-maid seemed to assume
a complete ascendancy over her, while she grew
pale and nervous, losing her spirit and her beauty
—losing her love of gaiety, and wearing a continual
air of nervous apprehension and fright. She no
longer cared for dress or jewels. Her life seemed
ebbing slowly away, while to her maid she Was
meek and submissive as • child.
Lady Dene fell ill, and one day, when my aunt,
with henna, was watching by her, she cried oat :1
" Look in the lake, near the Lady's Walk. You
will find him there I"

My aunt, pale and terrified, was turning away,
when Marina clutched her ann.

" Do you value your msater's honour--his good
name ? " elm gasped. "If so, be sileat ;at least
till my lady is dead."

Terrified and alarmed, my aunt never repeated the
words while Lady Dene lived. It was not long ;
she never recovered from the fatal fever. On the
night she died, a thunderstorm, such as had Dever
been known before, shook the walls of Lynton
Craig. What astonished everyone still more waa
that Rosina disappeared that night, and was never
seen near the Hall again. She had gone towards
London; but all traced of her in the great city was
loot.

When Lady Dene was buried,my aunt told the Earl
of her mysterious words, and of the strange rumours
respecting the man who had been seen to enter the
Hall, but never to leave it again.
In the dead, calm silence of the night, Lord Dena,
and his trusty servant, John Moore, dragged the
lake. They found there the ')ody of the ill-fated
gentleman who had left the letter for Lady Dens.
They were obliged to make the disoovery known.
It was generally supposed that the unfortunate
stranger had fallen into the water accidentally;
but Lord Dene had reason to know that the victim
was the first husband of his guilty wife. He had
raison to believe that, seated in the pretty boudior,
the stranger had drunk plenty of drugged wine;
and then the two women between them had carried
him in the darkness and silence of night to the lake.
Lord Deno went away from Lynton Craig, and
never returned to it again. Years afterwards he
married a fair and gentle English lady.

A person is not worth much that has not had
troubles. You cannot subdue selfishness without a
struggle. You cannot restrain pride without a
conflict. Yon cannot expect to go through lifo
without bearing burdens. But you are going to
have help under circumstances that will redeem
you froui these things. You are going to experience
more victories than delimits. Your sufferings will
be only here and there—little spots in a field of
peace and joy.
•

I SPANIRIT Tea 0) "Tut Kinrs.."--There Ii •
wide-spread impression among Englishmen that the
knife is a weapon used always by stealth, and one
that ne,ds no skill. This is far from being the
truth, or, at least, the whole truth. The general
run of things when the knife is used ill this: Two
men have a quarrel: words war higher and biFher
thy repair to a little roadside yenta, and drink a
coPu or two of vile nine. This heats their passion
still utore they repair outside the house, knives are
drawn, sombreros taken off. Both receive several
cuts, and at last one falls mortally wounded' Asa
rule, the Spanish use of the knife is not "a stab in
the dark and run away" affair. It is a quarrel
between two men, both of whom are on the alert.
In times of festivity, such as the annual fairs, it is
no uncommon thing for as many as nine or ten men
to be carried off to the hospital, mortally wounded.—
bfacmillaa's litteasine.