and secretive look. The windows were all shuttered and closed,
with the exception of the three on the lower floor and two others
directly over these. On the top story they were even boarded up, giving
to that portion of the house a blank and desolate air.

The grounds were separated from the street by a brick wall in our
direction; the line of separation was marked by a high iron fence, in
which I saw a gate.

The Vandykes, whom I had questioned on the matter, were very short in
their replies. But I learned this much. That the house belonged to one
of New York's oldest families. That its present owner was a widow of
great eccentricity of character, who, with her one child, a daughter,
unfortunately blind from birth, had taken up her abode in some foreign
country, where she thought her child's affliction would attract less
attention than in her native city.

The house had been closed to the extent I have mentioned, immediately
upon her departure, but had not been left entirely empty. Mr. Allison,
her man of business, had moved into it, and, being fully as eccentric as
herself, had contented himself for five years with a solitary life in
this dismal mansion, without friends, almost without acquaintances,
though he might have had unlimited society and any amount of attention,
his personal attractions being of a very uncommon order, and his talent
for business so pronounced, that he was already recognized at
thirty-five as one of the men to be afraid of in Wall Street. Of his
birth and connections little was known; he was called the Hermit of ----
Street.

I was not very well one day, and I had been left alone in the house.

At seven o'clock--how well I remember the hour!--I was sitting in my
window, waiting for the return of the Vandykes, and watching the face
which had now appeared at its usual place in the study. Suddenly my
attention was drawn from him to a window in the story over his head, by
the rapid blowing in and out of a curtain. As there was a lighted
gas-jet near by, I watched the gyrating muslin with apprehension, and
was shocked when, in another moment, I saw the flimsy folds give one
wild flap and flare up into a dangerous flame.

I dashed out of my room down-stairs, calling for the servants. But Lucy
was in the front area and Ellen above, and I was on the back porch and
in the garden before either of them responded.

Meanwhile, no movement was observable in the brooding figure of Mr.
Allison. I spra