st
induced us to visit it.

We found ourselves standing before the damp, dismantled stone walls of a
solitary cottage, placed on a plot of partially open ground, near the
outskirts of the wood. Long dark herbage grew about the inside of the
ruined little building; a toad was crawling where the leaves clustered
thickest, on what had once been the floor of a room; in every direction
corruption and decay were visibly battening on the lonesome place. Its
aspect would repel rather than allure curiosity, but for the mysterious
story associated with it, which gives it an attraction and an interest
that are not its own.

Years and years ago, when this desolate building was a neat comfortable
cottage, it was inhabited by two ladies, of whose histories, and even
names, all the people of the district were perfectly ignorant. One day
they were accidentally found living in their solitary abode, before any
one knew that they had so much as entered it, or that they existed at
all. Both appeared to be about the same age, and both were inflexibly
taciturn. One was never seen without the other; if they ever left the
house, they only left it to walk in the most unfrequented parts of the
wood; they kept no servant, and never had a visitor; no living souls but
themselves ever crossed the door of their cottage. They procured their
food and other necessaries from the people in the nearest village,
paying for everything they received when it was delivered, and neither
asking nor answering a single unnecessary question. Their manners were
gentle, but grave and sorrowful as well. The people who brought them
their household supplies, felt awed and uneasy, without knowing why, in
their presence; and were always relieved when they had dispatched their
errand and had got well away from the cottage and the wood.

Gradually, as month by month passed on, and the mystery hanging over the
solitary pair was still not cleared up, superstitious doubts spread
widely through the neighbourhood. Harmless as the conduct of the ladies
always appeared to be, there was something so sinister and startling
about the unearthly seclusion and secrecy of their lives, that people
began to feel vaguely suspicious, to whisper awful imaginary rumours
about them, to gossip over old stories of ghosts and false accusations
that had never been properly sifted to the end, whenever the inhabitants
of the cottage were mentioned. At last they were secretly watched by the
less scr