and I cantered every day over the frosty roads with Alaric Holme, and worked frivolité at night by the lamplight, while he read aloud to his mother and me. It was a happy time and very quiet, because Mrs. Holme was not able to receive visitors.

On days when Alaric Holme went to shoot over the hills, I loved to roam the moors alone, and climb the rocks, or gather holly and snowberries for a drawing-room basket; or when December snows and rains forbade such excursions, to take my block and pencil up to one of the odd little cell-like rooms at the top of the house, with their slanting roofs and latticed windows, and there pass delightful hours in sketching illustrations for German legends made up of wild suggestive bits of the landscape, and eerie figures traced in the drifting clouds.

Mrs. Betty the housekeeper accompanied me all over the abbey, telling many a story of forgotten tenants who once occupied its many chambers. It was a quaint, stately old building, perplexingly sugges tive of exactly opposite phases of life. Some of the apartments were fitted up in a style of old-fashioned frivolous grandeur, while the corridors looked like cloisters, and the oriel window which faced the sun would have fitly enriched a church. I discovered that the abbey had, as its name suggests, once been inhabited by monks; and as I sat often on dark days under the grave smiles of the twelve apostles, basking in the amber glow from the glass, and dreaming of summer sunsets, I delighted in sketching heads of saintly abbots who might have prayed and laboured within the walls, and groups of acolytes, whose voices might have rung through the abbey-how many silent years backward into the past.

never

There was a certain long, bleak drawing-room, which was used, and which seemed too damp and chill ever to be inhabited with comfort. I sometimes strayed into it, and speculated on what it might have been when in use, or what it might still be if revivified. I believed it was a pretty room once,

when the buff-and-silver papering was fresh, when the faded carpet was bright, when flowers overflowed those monster china vases, and the tall windows stood open like doors, with the ivy and jasmine crushing into the room. But now there was a chill, earthy dampness in the atmosphere, as though no window had been opened, and no fire lighted in it for years. Garnishings of withered holly were falling into dust over the highest mirrors and pictures. I drew Mrs. Betty's attention to this. She said: 'Yes, it was last used at Christmas time, and the holly was never taken down. The mistress took a dislike to the room, and never entered it since.'

This room had a ghostly fascination for me, and I used to steal into it in the wintry twilight, and walk up and down in the gathering shadows, watching with relish the tossing of spectral branches outside, and listening to the pealing howl of the wind. I had of late been reading too many German legends; but I was young, and full of bright health, and what must have been intolerably dismal to many, was luxury to me.

One evening I was thus passing the half-hour before tea. I walked up and down, repeating softly to myself

'It stands in the lonely Winterthal
At the base of Ilsburg Hill;

It stands as though it fain would fall,
The dark deserted Mill.

⚫ Its engines coated with moss and mould
Bide silent all the day;

Its mildewed walls and windows old
Are crumbling into decay.'

It was quite dusk, but that gleam of clearness which sometimes comes just before dark after a day of continuous rain, now struggled with the shadows, and cast a broad spaco of lightness under the dull eye of each blank window. This was the aspect of the room as I turned near the door to retrace my steps to the shadowy recesses at the farther end.

Pausing a moment, and glancing involuntarily at the most distant window, I started at seeing some one standing beside it. I instinctively passed my hand over my

eyes, and looked again. Neither fancy, nor any grotesque combination of light and shade had deceived me. A young lady was standing gazing intently out on the misty moors with her small clenched hand leaning on a little work-table which stood in the window. The figure was tall, though so exquisitely shaped that it hardly appeared so, and clad in black silk, which fell in graceful lustrous drapery to the ground, sweeping the floor behind. The side of the cheek turned towards me was perfect in symmetry and fair as a lily, without a tinge of colour. The hair, black as night, was twined in profuse braided masses round the small head. A band of white encircled the throat and wrists, relieving the darkness of the dress.

As I gazed, the figure turned slowly round with such an expression of hate and deadly purpose on the face as I shall never forget. Then as the countenance became perfectly revealed to me, its look changed gradually to one of triumph, malicious joy, its wickedness almost hidden under a radiant smile.

I gazed with amazement on the face, so wondrously beautiful. The dark eyes glittered like jewels, haloed with dusk fringes, and lightly overshadowed by delicate curved brows. The nose was small and straight, the lips red and thin, like a vermilion line traced on ivory. That wild, beautiful, audacious smile quivered over all like moonlight, making me shrink in terror from I knew not what. As I watched the smile faded, and an expression of anguish and despair convulsed the face; a veil of mist seemed to rise between me and the strange figure, and then, cold and trembling, I crept out of the room. With a return of courage I paused in the hall, and glanced backward, but the darkness had fallen, and no figure was discernible.

I fled down the hall, scarce breathing till I reached Mrs. Betty's room. I met her coming to seek me. The urn had gone up, and Mrs. Holme was impatient for tea. I pressed across Mrs. Betty's threshold, eager

to feel, even for a moment, the reassurance given by light and warmth.

Mrs. Betty looked startled when she saw my face. My word, miss,' she said, you look as if you had seen a ghost.'

I tried to laugh. Tell me quickly,' I said, 'who is the strange young lady in the long drawing-room?'

A young lady in the long drawing-room?'

Yes, do you not know? Nay, you must. A beautiful girl in a black silk dress, with dark hair, and pale, fair face.'

Mrs. Betty turned pale, and laid the jar of preserves which she carried upon the table, as if she had grown suddenly too weak to hold it.

'It must be a mistake, or you are only in jest, miss,' she said. There is no such person in or near the house as you describe.'

'I have not been mistaken, and I am too much in earnest to jest. If there is no such person, then it must have been a ghost.'

'Hush! miss, for God's sake!' said Mrs. Betty, joining her hands in awe. 'Do not say such a thing lightly. Your eyes deceived you in the dark. Think no more about it, miss, but please go quickly to the drawing-room. The mistress will wonder where you can be.' 'I will go,' I said; but remember I am positive.'

'Stay, miss,' said Mrs. Betty, coming after me ere I had taken half a dozen steps. You will promise to say nothing of this to any one; not to the mistress or Mr. Alaric?'

I promised, and reluctantly hastened to the drawing-room.

II.

A month passed, and I had never encountered the strange young lady again. During this time Mr. Alaric had departed, leaving Heatherbell Abbey more still and dreamlike a dwelling than before. Mrs. Holme and Mrs. Betty each mourned his departure in her own particular way, but each consoled herself with the promise he had given of a speedy return. The morning on which he went was raw and cheerless, and somehow, as I passed down the

of spoiling my work for want of light, and at last gathered up my pencils to descend. On opening the door I beheld the opposite door unclose also, and a figure flitted over the threshold, the same that I had seen in the long drawing-room; the slim, swaying form, the black, lustrous drapery, the pale face, and raven hair. Only the width of the corridor separated me from her; I heard the rustle of her silk skirt, and felt a cold stir in the air as it wafted past. She flung a strange, gleaming smile at me, and flitted on along the corridor, and disappeared down the staircase.

I felt all the sickening distress of supernatural terror; it tormented and paralyzed me, but I could not swoon. I staggered against the

At

wall, but the wild question, 'What is it? What is it?' would not suffer my senses to leave me. My eyes wandered from that mysterious door opposite to the staircase, to which my limbs refused to carry me, and up which I had a horrid expectation of seeing that terrible white face with its fearful beauty coming again to meet me. length, with a frantic effort I dashed down the corridor and stairs. Reckless with terror, I sprang from flight to flight with a speed which my weak limbs could not support. The swift descent made my head reel, my knees bent, I grew blind, and fell heavily from a considerable height into the hall.

I broke my arm in that fall, and then I did faint. When I recovered,