Uncle Silas

Knowl has its shadows, noises, and marvellous records. Rachel Ruthyn, the beauty of Queen Anne's time, who died of grief for the handsome

her brocades, her sighs as she pauses in the galleries, near

el," as the maids called her, he is seen only, never heard. His steps fall noiseless as shadows on floor and carpet. The lurid glow of his smouldering torch imperfectly lights his figure and face, and, except when much perturbed, his link never blazes. On

pened, making a rustling with her dress, and going down the stairs, and breathing long breaths here and there. Twice, she said, she had stood at her door in the dark, listening to these sounds,

norant intensely. But the special effect, I have found, soon wears out, and th

ftly approaching. I jumped up - quite forgetting the ghost, and thinking only of Mary Quince - and opened the door, expecting to see the light of her candle. Instead, all was dark, and near me I heard the fall of a bare foot on the oak floor. It was as if some one had stumbled. I said, "Mary,"

rattling, at about four o'clock in the morning, she saw a light shining from the library window. She could swear to its being a strong

y for the odd sort of ascendency which, through my sense of the mysterious and supernatural,

peedily emerged from the prismatic

r as Madame began to lose that character, her good-humour abated very perceptibly,

s austerely attentive at morning and evening services, and asked my father, with great hu

ront of the windows. Sullen and malign at times she used to look, and as suddenly she would pat me on the shoulder caress

insanity. The key, however, was accidentally supplied, and I found that these excesses of demonstrati

wide mouth drawn down at the corners, and a scowl, looking into the fire. If she saw me looking at her, she would change all this on the instant, affect a sort of languor, and lean her head upon her hand, and ultimately

; I should have felt that she was more canny and human. As it was, those external pieties made a suspicion of

xious about my collects and catechism, had an exalted opinion of h

as I learned, from my contumacy and temper. The fact is, I was altogether quiet and submissive. But I think she had a wish to reduce me to a state of the most

me into the study o

ain of your ill-temper and disobedience? - why should she be compelled to ask my permission to punish you? Don't be afraid, I won't concede that.

stice of the charge, "I have always done exactly as she

eased look he pointed to the door. My heart swelled with the sense of wrong, and as I r

y let us do better for the future. Th

ad, and gently put me o

k courage, and with some

ely. "Read aloud those three - yes, those

e particular chapters, and when they

t to memory this pretty pr

a state of profound irrita

tending pains in her stomach. Here, perhaps, there was exaggeration; but I knew it was true that I had been at different times despatched on that err

with a sense of danger that I heard Madame say she must go and see Monsieur Ruthyn in the library, and I think a jeal