Year: 1875

This is a true story which 1 am about
to tell-remember that. The incident
occurred many years ago-a great many
years ago, it seems to me for L was n
boy then. and now I have grey threads
in my locks.


1t was during the vacation following my
first year at Oxford-how very long ago
Well, it came about in this wise l was
London born and bred, you must know,
and was therefore tired to death of the
hot, dusty streets and so, when dis
tant relative, living in q little, far-away,
quiet village, wrote me to spend the
summer vacation at his cool, snug house,
I gladly and at once acce pied, and began
packing my trunk with everything which
1 deemed necessary or convenient to my
visit-not, by any means, forgetting
copy each of Homerand Horace, bymeans
of which intended to astonish my rural
relatives, and gain reputation for schol-
arly profundity, which, am very will
ling to acknowledge at this late day, [
was in nowise entitled to. 1t may not
be amiss to say, by way of parenthesis,
that when 1 found my pretty cousin,
May Anderson-my junior by two years
fully my equal in Latin, my superior
in French, and an accomplished pianist,
moreover, that 1 gave up the idea of
making a sensation in that manner, or,
indeed, in any manner whatever, but fell
to liking her Immediately, to forgetting
my classics, and to enjoying myself with
out let or hindrance.


Now, all this by way of preface, for it
has very little to do with the unaccount-
able event that am going to relate.


1t was little village of a single street
"a fresh, shady, struggling, monotonous
little village. The only thing of interest
to me in the place, always excepting my
cousin May, was a large, dilapidated old
mansion standing on a rise of ground at
the remote end of the village uninhab-
tied when first saw it, and thus had
been for years, was told. Little boys,
who by daylight dared hardly to throw
stones through the mouldering and glass
less windows, never passed the gloomy
shell after dark, unless from necessity,
and then with much bravado of loud
whistling and nervously swift steps.


But one day change was observed !;
the broken windows were found boarded
UP or filed with rags light smoke was
seen to issue from one of the huge CHM
neys, and some unusually audacious adj
venturers, peering through rear win
dow on the ground flour, saw two old
and haggish-loolling women, whose faces
showed them to be sisters, sitting at
their scanty meal.


From this time forward very little was
seen or known of the mysterious occu
pants of the old house. Strange ru-
mours got afoat that these two misery
and, to all appearance, wretchedly poor
old women, were heiresses of the aristo-
cratic proprietor of ihe lordly old edifice,
and had immense stores of wealth hidden
in the dark hooks and crannies of the
house and, to the unbounded wonder
of many practical and shrewd people,
subsequent events showed good grain
of truth in these unaccredited reports.


Well, things ran on in the same easy
going. humdrum style for two or three
months, at the end of which time began
thinking of my return to college, and
immensely dreading to say goodbye to
my cousin May.


Early one autumn evening, few days
previous to that of my proposed depart
ure, the whole village was shocked by
the report that one of the old ladies had
hanged herself and, with all a boy s
eagerness, hurried to the deadly spot.
Only two or three of the villagers were
at the house on my arrival /; and with
these was the surviving old beldame,
whom had never seen before, a num-
bring, grumbling, wicked-faced old hag,
who paid little or no attention to our
presence or questions. AT last, to the
question where the body might be found,
she said not a word, but signed us to
follow her, which we did with strange
reluctance. Through long untidy hall
she led ms up a broad fight of stairs,