sts and with spread
enough of skirt for a modern ballroom, with bowing, reclining, or
musical swains of what everybody calls the "conventional" sort,--that
is, the swain adapted to genteel society rather than to a literal
sheep-compelling existence.

The house was furnished, soon after it was completed, with many heavy
articles made in London from a rare wood just then come into fashion,
not so rare now, and commonly known as mahogany. Time had turned it very
dark, and the stately bedsteads and tall cabinets and claw-footed
chairs and tables were in keeping with the sober dignity of the ancient
mansion. The old "hangings" were yet preserved in the chambers, faded,
but still showing their rich patterns,--properly entitled to their name,
for they were literally hung upon flat wooden frames like trellis-work,
which again were secured to the naked partitions.

There were portraits of different date on the walls of the various
apartments, old painted coats-of-arms, bevel-edged mirrors, and in one
sleeping-room a glass case of wax-work flowers and spangly symbols,
with a legend signifying that E. M. (supposed to be Elizabeth Mascarene)
wished not to be "forgot"

"When I am dead and lay'd in dust
And all my bones are"--

Poor E. M.! Poor everybody that sighs for earthly remembrance in a
planet with a core of fire and a crust of fossils!

Such was the Dudley mansion-house,--for it kept its ancient name in
spite of the change in the line of descent. Its spacious apartments
looked dreary and desolate; for here Dudley Venner and his daughter
dwelt by themselves, with such servants only as their quiet mode of
life required. He almost lived in his library, the western room on the
ground-floor. Its window looked upon a small plat of green, in the midst
of which was a single grave marked by a plain marble slab. Except this
room, and the chamber where he slept, and the servants' wing, the rest
of the house was all Elsie's. She was always a restless, wandering
child from her early years, and would have her little bed moved from one
chamber to another,--flitting round as the fancy took her. Sometimes she
would drag a mat and a pillow into one of the great empty rooms, and,
wrapping herself in a shawl, coil up and go to sleep in a corner.
Nothing frightened her; the "haunted" chamber, with the torn hangings
that flapped like wings when there was air stirring, was one of her
favorite retreats. She had been a very h