Evening star., 1896-09-19
PART I.

PART I.
The night was an IDEAL one for telling
stories before a flaming hearth. the house
was rich in old-time associations. and the
company was responsive equally to the
gay and the grave. The first was in
March, the second was the home Of my
friend, Philip Letterby. and the third was
the group Of guests he annually entertains
in observance of a hospitable custom that
his family has never permitted to lapse
The conversation of such a circle will grav-
ttate to sup ,raatural experience, and this
one was no EXCEPTION. Many such had been
related at secondhand when Abnec Let
terby. Philips father, addressed u.s. HE
had been sitting nearest the fire, thought
fully leaning forward upon his hickory
staff. If close approach to the portals
of the unknown should yield foreknowledse
of its strange laws, he could have spoken
with abundant authority.
Il have never told any of you," he said,
why the old Budthorne place Is called
The House of Fear AS the grandson
of the last owner who lived in 1t Is here
tCright this is a good time to tell It."
You Will oblge me very much by dong
so, responded the young man referred 10.
Philip had accidentally found him at the
village i'm that afternoon and had per-
suadei him to become one of his guests.
He was travelling for the benefit OF MS
health and had come TO the neignborhooo
to visit the original homestead OF MS lam
lily. He was about twenty-five years OF
age, pale and thin, but still holding fast
e sustaining residue of his normal robust
ness and strength of manhood.
THE house has been without tenant
for almost forty years. the old man be-
gan in d guavering voice that added much
to the weird gravity of his narrative:
Martin Budthorne, your grandfather sold
IL to the father of Armstrong, the present
oNEer, Nhen the awful thing am going
to tell of happened anu went west He
advised Armstrong to build new house
at the other end of the farm and never
to go into the old one 1t was matter
of great wonder at the time. but the fact
that no one can live in it has now naturally
become a matter of course
Martin had a brother John, the worst
boy TO rove about l ever saw. He couldn
be Contentea anywhere very long, and
when their father died, he soon turned his
share of the estate into money and went
gadding about the world. One night he
came hcme to Martins house unexpectedly.
Every body saw that he was on his last
legs. He was in bed when 1 went over to
see him, and 1 made up my mind he hadn t
a week to live. He wanted to talk that
night L went over, and he told US many
stories of his travels. He was one of these
things. and he told Martin that several
boxes of them would come IN a few day;
I'll he last city he had spent much time in.
he said. was Bagdad. and he had made it
his headquarters while looking around over
the scenes told about in the arabian
Nights That is a specimen of the crazy
notions he was always taking. He told us
he had bought from an Arab there the
finest curiosity he had ever seen. 1t was a
round ball .ade entirely of small pieces of
bone cut from human skulls. The skulls
were of men and women who had died aw-
ful deaths. Some of them were criminals
that had been executed by being beheaded
or tortured. some had been murdered. some
Killed IN earthquakes, storms and all sorts