being
curiously realistic, especially on moonlight nights, when anything more
lifelike and sinister could scarcely have been conceived. The artist,
whoever he was, had a more than human knowledge of cats--he portrayed
not merely their bodies but their souls.

[Footnote 1: I have subsequently met several people who experienced the
same phenomena in the house, which was standing a short time ago.]

"In style the front of the house was somewhat castellated. Two
semicircular bows, or half towers, placed at a suitable distance from
each other, rose from the base to the summit of the edifice, to the
height of four or five stairs; and were pierced, at every floor, with
rows of stone-mullioned windows. The flat wall between had larger
windows, lighting the great hall, gallery, and upper apartments. These
windows were wholly composed of stained glass, engraved with every
imaginable fantastic design--imps, satyrs, dragons, witches,
queer-shaped trees, hands, eyes, circles, triangles and cats.

"The towers, half included in the building, were completely circular
within, and contained the winding stairs of the mansion; and whoever
ascended them when a storm was raging seemed rising by a whirlwind to
the clouds.

"In the upper rooms even the wildest screams of the hurricane were
drowned in the rattling clamour of the assaulted casements. When a gale
of wind took the building in front, it rocked it to the foundations,
and, at such times, threatened its instant demolition.

"Midway between the towers there stood forth a heavy stone porch with a
Gothic gateway, surmounted by a battlemented parapet, made gable
fashion, the apex of which was garnished by a pair of dolphins, rampant
and antagonistic, whose corkscrew tails seemed contorted--especially at
night--by the last agonies of rage convulsed. The porch doors stood
open, except in tremendous weather; the inner ones were regularly shut
and barred after all who entered. They led into a wide vaulted and lofty
hall, the walls of which were decorated with faded tapestry, that rose,
and fell, and rustled in the most mysterious fashion every time there
was the suspicion--and often barely the suspicion--of a breeze.

"Interspersed with the tapestry--and in great contrast to its
antiquity--were quite modern and very ordinary portraits of my family.
The general fittings and furniture, both of the hall and house, were
sombre and handsome--truss-beams, corbels, girders and panels were of