examined the shield of arms on the panel.

"Azure, a lion's head erased, between three flowers de luce," said he,
then whispered the name of the family to whom these bearings belonged.
The last inheritor of its honors was recently dead, after a long
residence amid the splendor of the British court, where his birth and
wealth had given him no mean station. "He left no child," continued
the herald, "and these arms, being in a lozenge, betoken that the
coach appertains to his widow."

Further disclosures, perhaps, might have been made had not the speaker
been suddenly struck dumb by the stern eye of an ancient lady who
thrust forth her head from the coach, preparing to descend. As she
emerged the people saw that her dress was magnificent, and her figure
dignified in spite of age and infirmity--a stately ruin, but with a
look at once of pride and wretchedness. Her strong and rigid features
had an awe about them unlike that of the white Old Maid, but as of
something evil. She passed up the steps, leaning on a gold-headed
cane. The door swung open as she ascended, and the light of a torch
glittered on the embroidery of her dress and gleamed on the pillars of
the porch. After a momentary pause, a glance backward and then a
desperate effort, she went in.

The decipherer of the coat-of-arms had ventured up the lower step,
and, shrinking back immediately, pale and tremulous, affirmed that the
torch was held by the very image of old Caesar.

"But such a hideous grin," added he, "was never seen on the face of
mortal man, black or white. It will haunt me till my dying-day."

Meantime, the coach had wheeled round with a prodigious clatter on the
pavement and rumbled up the street, disappearing in the twilight,
while the ear still tracked its course. Scarcely was it gone when the
people began to question whether the coach and attendants, the ancient
lady, the spectre of old Caesar and the Old Maid herself were not all a
strangely-combined delusion with some dark purport in its mystery. The
whole town was astir, so that, instead of dispersing, the crowd
continually increased, and stood gazing up at the windows of the
mansion, now silvered by the brightening moon. The elders, glad to
indulge the narrative propensity of age, told of the long-faded
splendor of the family, the entertainments they had given and the
guests, the greatest of the land, and even titled and noble ones from
abroad, who had passed beneath that portal. These