e lies a great book in
which is written the history of all our family, my life and thine; and
see that thou do this with care, or woe be unto thee!'

"Therewith the old man died, and scarcely had he departed ere she called
an old woman who was allied and devoted to the family, and in a rage told
her all the secret. The old woman reproved her, saying that she would
bring punishment on herself. But, without heeding this, the lady ran to
the chamber, entered, and seeing the skull, gave it a kick and hurled it
from the window, far below.

"But a minute after she heard a rattling sound, and looking at the
window, there the skull was grinning at her. Again she threw it down,
and again it returned, and was with her wherever she went; day after day,
waking or sleeping, the skull was always before her eyes.

"At last fear came over her, and then horror, and she said to the old
woman, 'Let us go to some place far, far away, and bury the skull.
Perhaps it will rest in its grave.' The old woman tried to dissuade her,
and they went to a lonely spot at a great distance, and there they dug
long and deep.

"Dug till a great hole was made, and the lady standing on the edge
dropped the skull into it. Then the hole spread into a great pit, flame
rose from it--the edge crumbled away--the guilty woman fell into the
fire, and the earth closed over it all, and there was no trace left of
her.

"The skull returned to the castle and to its room; people say it is there
to this day. The old woman returned too, and being the last remote
relation, entered into possession of the property."

* * * * *

There is perhaps not one well-educated person in society in England who
has not had the opportunity to remark how very much any old family can
succeed in being notorious if it can only once make it known that it has
an hereditary _secret_. Novels will be written on it, every member of it
will be pointed out everywhere, and people who do not know the name of a
sovereign in Europe can tell you all about it and them. And the number
is not small of those who consider themselves immensely greater because
they have in some way mastered something which they are expected to keep
concealed. I could almost believe that this "'orrible tale" was composed
as a satire on family secrets. But I believe that she who told it firmly
believed it. _Credo quia absurdum_ would not be well understood among
humble folk in Italy