said she.

"Why not?" said I.

She led the way past the marble basin of the fountain, and along the
historic yew avenue, planted, like all old yew avenues, by that
industrious gardener our Eighth Henry. Then across a lawn, through a
winding, grassy, shrubbery path, that ended at a green door in the
garden wall.

"You can lift this latch with a hairpin," said she, and therewith lifted
it.

We walked into a courtyard. Young grass grew green between the grey
flags on which our steps echoed.

"This is the window," said she. "You see there's a pane broken. If you
could get on to the window-sill, you could get your hand in and undo
the hasp, and----"

"And you?"

"Oh, you'll let me in by the kitchen door."

I did it. My conscience called me a burglar--in vain. Was it not my own,
or as good as my own house?

I let her in at the back door. We walked through the big dark kitchen
where the old three-legged pot towered large on the hearth, and the old
spits and firedogs still kept their ancient place. Then through another
kitchen where red rust was making its full meal of a comparatively
modern range.

Then into the great hall, where the old armour and the buff-coats and
round-caps hang on the walls, and where the carved stone staircases run
at each side up to the gallery above.

The long tables in the middle of the hall were scored by the knives of
the many who had eaten meat there--initials and dates were cut into
them. The roof was groined, the windows low-arched.

"Oh, but what a place!" said she; "this must be much older than the rest
of it----"

"Evidently. About 1300, I should say."

"Oh, let us explore the rest," she cried; "it is really a comfort not to
have a guide, but only a person like you who just guesses comfortably at
dates. I should hate to be told _exactly_ when this hall was built."

We explored ball-room and picture gallery, white parlour and library.
Most of the rooms were furnished--all heavily, some magnificently--but
everything was dusty and faded.

It was in the white parlour, a spacious panelled room on the first
floor, that she told me the ghost story, substantially the same as my
porter's tale, only in one respect different.

"And so, just as she was leaving this very room--yes, I'm sure it's this
room, because the woman at the inn pointed out this double window and
told me so--just as the poor lovers were creeping out of the door, the
cruel father came quickly out of some dark p