Connecticut western news., 1893-04-13

Cdnuie5 anu the Ire ClOSely ScruIlnlZeu the woman who had brought me there. She was tall and slender, and wore a long russet gown of an old fashioned cut. but her face was pale and sad. with sharp. clear cut features. and mass of rough. reddish hair was carelessly twisted into long knot at the nape of her neck.
 She motioned me to one of the chairs, taking the other herself. and she now sat bending over the fire. apparently too deep in her own bitter reflections to be conscious of my presence. The express sion on her thin, worn face was very sorrowful, and her hands were tightly clinched in her lap. But, though thin and worn, her face WAS still lovely. and as gazed l thought how lovely it would be were the hollows filled out and the deep lines smoothed away
 Suddenly with little resolute ges- ture, she turned toward me and began to speak in low. rapid tones.
 .i brought you here because wanted to tell you my story. and want your help if you will give it.
 Then. with voice rising and falling with varying emotions. and with deep gray eyes fixed on my face. she told her sad tale. The beginning was common place enough-a beautiful, willful girl a stern, unyielding father; two lovers. one brave and handsome. the other mo- rose and unattractive; proposed flight a sudden death: n broken heart-the last three were the tragic elements
 And l saw them carry him by the house dead" she said. speaking in a strange. dull way, 'and for long time think 1 must have lost my senses When my father still insisted on my marriage with the wretch he had chosen for my husband 1 raised no protest. viewed the preparations for the we'd ding with indifference. seemed turned to stone. But week before the mar riage my reason returned. and realized the horror of the coil which was slowly tightening around me- Then it was that determined on what was virtually living burial. was born in this dear old house, and 1 knew every nook and cranny of it. My foster mother had shown me the sliding panel in the room above that which 1 then occupied. and she and l were the only living persons who knew the secret. She was devoted to me. and l at length won her over to my plan.
 ''On the night before my bridal day fled down here. and here have remained ever since. For eight years have been dead to the world. 1 had valuable jewelry which had been my dead moth CTS; that has been gradually sold. and on the proceeds l have subsisted My foster mother comes daily and brings me food-not through the house of course. There is secret path and door of communication in the garden.
 And the ghostY' queried.
 Oh, she said with queer little smile. Il am the ghost! You see, wanted to keep the house empty. so that l might wander about the rooms and grounds: but now am tired of this un- natural existence. Life will always be sad for me. 1 have had dreadful grief. and all my dear ones are dead: but. in spite of all. my youth reasserts itself. and solitude has at last lost It's charm. So wish to return to the world. and you can help me to do so Will your
 Of course helped her, and within a week from that time the Thorpe manor .ghost" laid forever-was safe under the kind wing of John Ridgway's homely little wife. and by the time the roses were blooming in my sweet scented old fashioned garden the ghost" too. had bloomed into beauty and 1, sober old bachelor, had fallen in iove-quite hopelessly. told myself, for her heart was with her dead, and yet it happened that one June afternoon as we stood alone by the sundial on the sloping shady lawn, something gave me courage Perhaps it was that she looked so sweet in her fresh muslin gown. with the flowers in her belt. ol perhaps because caught strange fieeting look in her shy gray eyes: any way l know she mur1nured that she loved the dear old home with it's many gables and pretty garden Then whispered
 Need you eyer leave ity And look ing under the broad brimmed garden hat into her flushed happy face Iadded
 Come. sweet ghost, and haunt the old place foreverr
 And she consented. -Munyon's Maga zine