d partly over it....
Only the hold of his hands between him and his death. And I knelt above
him, with the knife in my hand that was stained with _her_ blood.

"The great yellow face, ashen now in its mortal agony, looked silently
up at me--for three or four awful seconds; and then--then it
disappeared.

"Bah!" Paul concluded, "that was the end of it."

CATHERINE'S QUEST.

Imagine to yourself an old, rambling, red-brick house, with odd corners
and gables here and there, all bound and clasped together with ivy, and
you have Craymoor Grange. It was built long before Queen Elizabeth's
time, and that illustrious monarch is said to have slept in it in one of
her royal progresses--as where has she not slept?

There still remain some remnants of bygone ages, although it has been
much modernized and added to in later days. Among these are the
brewhouse and laundry--formerly, it is said, dining-hall and ball-room.
The latter of these is chiefly remarkable for an immense arched window,
such as you see in churches, with five lights.

When we came to the Grange this window had been partially blocked up,
and in front of it, up to one-third of its height, was a wooden dais, or
platform, on which stood a cumbrous mangle, left there, I suppose, by
the last tenants of the house.

Of these last tenants we knew very little, for it was so long since it
had been inhabited that the oldest authority in the village could not
remember it.

There were, however, some half-defaced monuments in the village church
of Craymoor, bearing the figures and escutcheons of knights and dames of
"the old family," as the villagers said; but the inscriptions were worn
and almost illegible, and for some time we none of us took the pains to
decipher them.

We first came to Craymoor Grange in the summer of 1849, my husband
having discovered the place in one of his rambles, and taken a fancy to
it. At first I certainly thought we could never make it our home, it was
so dilapidated and tumble-down; but by the time winter came on we had
had several repairs done and alterations made, and the rooms really
became quite presentable.

As our family was small we confined ourselves chiefly to the newest part
of the house, leaving the older rooms to the mice, dust, and darkness.
We made use of two of the old rooms, however, one as a servants' bedroom
and the other as an extra spare chamber, in case of many visitors. For
myself, though I hope I am neither