The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-01-28

In the sonu wall near the stair and almost directly opposite the trunk room a narrow door had swung outward-a neat contrivance, so light in it's con struction that it still swayed on it's concealed hinges from the touch of the hand that had released 1t. How it had opened or what had become of the prowIer who had un1atched it remain ed to be discovered It seemed impos- sible that whoever or whatever had climbed the hidden stairway had de- seconded, nor had I been conscious of a ghostly passing IS on the previous night. I had only my senses to apply to this problem, and their efficiency was minimized for a moment by fear.
 The opening in the wall engaged my attention at once, and Pwas steadied by the thought that here was a practical matter susceptible of investigation. stepped within the door and lighted a candle, and just as the wick caught fire click went a switch somewhere and out went the hall lamps. But, having, so to speak, put my foot to the myste- rious stair, I would not turn back, and continued on down the steps.
 Great was my astonishment to find that I had apparently stepped from a new into an old house. The stair treads were worn by long use, the plaster walls that enclosed them were battered and cracked and seemed to have plugged from the glory of Hope field into some dim lost passage of a domicile of another era that lay within or beneath the walls of the Manor. As I slowly descended, holding high my candle, I recalled, not without a qualm, the story of the British soldier whom tradition or superstition linked to the site of Miss Hollister's property
 At the foot of the stair I found two rooms, one on either side of a small hall, and these also were clearly part of an old house that seemed to be somehow merged into the Hollister mansion. remembered now that the mansion stood wedged against rough spur of rock and that the front and rear entrances were upon different lev els, and it was conceivable that the back part of the mansion might inclose these rooms of an earlier house occu- pying the same site. Why they should have been retained was beyond me.
 Through the carefully preserved win dows, many paned and quaint, of these hidden rooms the unfolding walls of the new house were blank and black. i One door only remained in this shell of the old house, and hastened to fling it open, still lighting my way with a candle. Before me lay the coal cellar, at which had merely glanced on the morning after my installation at Hope field I now began to get my bearings. I remembered two iron lids in the ce- mented surface of an area on the east side of the house where fuel was de posted, and, mounting few steps that were of recent construction and had evidently been built to afford communi- cation between the remnant of the old house and the subterranean portion of the new, I found to my relief and satis- 1 faction beneath one of these openings short ladder, through which the court might be reached Here, then, the manner of ghostly tngress was illus trated by perfectly plausible means. | The lid of the coal hole was entirely withdrawn, and bar of moonlight lay brightening upon pile of anthracite | at the foot of the ladder