"I wonder whether it is to-morrow or next day, or how long I have been here?" she sighed. The envelopes went to black dust; the letters followed them; if she ever got out, Tom Walford could write her some more; if she died a prisoner, nothing beyond that mattered very much. The matches one by one disappeared. did the dismal duedecimos which had wrought so much trouble. So True to her prevailing instinct, Prudence did not burn these books until she found that one was a ragged Virgil, printed in the present century, and the other, an Iliad of but a year or two older. They were not antiquities, fortunately. If they had been she might have clung to them somewhat longer. At last, by cutting and breaking, prying off splinters and using all her strength, she penetrated the door, she felt the knife-blade go through, she peeped into the hole and found a gleam of daylight. Manor Hall was as still as a tomb. Not a sound. Mistress Peony must be milking, and her husband off at his work, said Prudence. Again she consulted her watch, it was six o'clock. Six o'clock of a dewy, shining, fragrant, mellow summer morning. No one in the house, and Prudence opened the back door. It did not strike her as singular that she had to unbolt it. No one about the yards. Prudence went into the house again. "They are off early. It is a mile to my sister's, and I have had nothing to eat since yesterday noon. I am starved. I must help myself, and pay what the treat is worth afterwards." Prudence washed her face, smoothed her hair, felt much refreshed, and hungrier than ever. No one had appeared, so our damsel in distress speedily found the pantry, and it proved to be wel supplied. Bread and butter, rounds of pink corned beef, a pan of gingerbread, and a basin of milk covered with cream. Prudence applied herself to these viands as harmoniously as she had to the bread and cheese wherewith Tom Walford had initiated his love-making. But she had not come at the latch. However, with a ray of light to tell where to keep on cutting, and a broken place to start from, she got on bravely, making havoc of the door, and finally she put forth a bent hair-pin, touched Thus restored to life and its comforts, and rattled the latch, but could not lift it. Miss Aubrey did not like to depart leavShe clipped and cut in the right direc-ing Mrs. Peony's house unlocked and her tion now, and presently got her finger cupboard plundered; therefore she sat outside. on the doorstep whereon that good woman had rested to darn black hosiery, and waited to see if some one would not come. There; in a moment the work was done, she pushed up the heavy latch, the door swung open as easily as it had closed upon her, and she was standing in the hall. With freedom, our Prudence regained all her equanimity. She was herself again. She dusted her dress, smoothed necktie and collar, directed her attention to the appearance of her hat and gloves, refilled her pocket, not forgetting the tile, and lamented that the battered classics had been sacrificed in her behalf. She then went down the stair-case, wondering what the pair of Peonys would think of her unexpected appearance, and what would be a felicitious mode of explaining her recent adventure. It was a glorious day, and Prudence, after her night of wonders, was in a happy frame of mind. A halo of romance rested softly over this old mansion, a tender grace was upon yon dwelling of the dead; she mused on all the visions of the darkness. Suddenly she became conscious of rude sounds, and looking up, saw Mr. and Mrs. Peony approaching their habitation through a lane. The warden of Manor Hall bore a knotted club; his wife, modestly behind him, was armed with an umbrella: a heavy Irishman in a red shirt swung a poker; his wife was weaponed with a broom: a negro closed the line of march with a scythe in his hand and a ferocious expression in his eye, though his lagging steps might have betokened cowardice. Prudence Aubrey wished herself at home. The party drew near, and stopped, bewildered at the sight of the lady on the door-step. "Why, Miss! it is early you are here," cried Mr. Peony. "Did you see nothing?" screamed his wife. "What should I see?" asked Prudence. "Luck be to you! The Manor Hall is haunted, sure enough," exclaimed the Irishman. "Such a night as we spent!" cried Mrs. Peony; "we would not live it again, or we'd be all dead men, me and me husband. O, Miss, they warned me, but I did never believe the half of it. Now I do-O, I do!" "But what is it? Please explain," said Prudence. "It begun in the evening, when once we were fairly set down quiet, and the chores dene up. A noise like a woodpecker, maybe, and a thrimbling of the wall, and a wee, faint cry like. "Sure now, that was the wailing soul of a poor babe, unbaptized-mercy upon it!" said Mrs. Peony's neighbor. "Well, from that it just went on," continued Mrs. Peony. "Sometimes a shriek quite plain, that made me blood run cold, and knocks, and so on. It sounded overhead like, at first." Prudence began to have a glimmering consciousness of what this courageous couple had heard. "Finally," said Mrs. Peony, looking apprehensively at the house, "it got into the wall side." "What got in?" asked Prudence. "The ghost, Missis," explained the negro; and Mrs. Peony, nodding her assent, proceeded with her story. "There's been a murder in Manor Hall some time, I know, for it went rattle, rattle, rattle, rattle, like the bones of a skeleting dropping to pieces. Ah, evil deeds will out! Then the rapping began. Says me man, 'Speak spirit, if The tone of horror deepened through Mrs. Peony's speech. "We went to bed, and by-and-by we heard a cry; a long, horrid scream-0, it sounded, you can't tell how it sounded." "I think I can," said Prudence. "Ah, but Miss, this was a death wail; a fearsome shriek from an Evil Onesuch sounds! filing saws and firing cannon, and dogs with tin pans on their tails, and crazy cats, all made in one, would never equal it. Me man, he rises up, and he says: 'Peter, Paul, Luke and John, Then it hushed up for a minute, and we "I wonder I am alive," said Prudence, her tones. "I mean to have one person calmly. "I was left up stairs shut in a who will care and know whether I get closet yesterday, when our party visited lost or not." the house. The door closed fast, and kept me in. Those noises you heard I made, trying to get some one to come and let me out. I got my breakfast just now in your pantry, ma'am, and there is pay for it." Prudence reached home as the family were finishing breakfast, and had the satisfaction of being regarded as a heroine. "What are you doing?" asked the doctor, finding her busy in the library about noon. "I'm writing to Tom," said Miss Aubrey, with defiance of something in "And what is to become of that tile?” "I shall have it set in gold, sir, and present it to Tom in lieu of my miniature!" exclaimed our damsel. "Since your love affair was inaugurated in a tomb, with the concomitants of bread and cheese, I recommend that the denouement be a matter of magnificence, with church services and French millinery," cried Doctor Pils. Prudence rested her head on her hand, and said, softly: "I wish I might look as beautiful as that Phantom Bride whom I saw last night in the old Manor Hall." AMONG THE HEMLOCKS. BY REV. T. HEMPSTEAD. Tags subtle, immemorial litanies HEY stir, and all the air is thronged with sound, Harped to the hollow winds and chilly stars Or man had wandered to these nameless shores. Just over where their huge arms meet, the sky Above, around, how dim and vast they spread, That has been dust for many a long, long year. Glares through the evening gloom in act to spring? And glimmers through these giant boughs, and breathes Beneath the stillness of great forest domes, Where the brave blue-bird flashes from his cell I hear the tremble of a golden wind An orchis in a dim and silent wood Waving its spicy thyrse of milk-white flowers; My heart with a supreme undying thirst Boughs wave in boughs. lilies in lilies droop, The awful mystery that wraps all life- No painless cycles of unending years, No dawn-burst on those everlasting hills Where Death and tears are unremembered dreams, eye Of groves that trickle with the myrrhs of God, But let not thought perplex. One dreamful hour |