young Putkammer dismissed his attendants and
retired to his chamber. Erelong he heard the door of the gallery open,
the heavy footsteps sound on the stairway, the front door creak on its
hinges,--and then the roll of the carriage, first over the stone
pavement, then along the gravelled avenue, till the sounds gradually
died away in the distance.

The next night he was ready dressed and prepared with lights. When,
about the same hour, the noise of the approaching carriage was heard, he
had the lights immediately carried to the top of the stairway, and he
himself half descended the stairs. Up the stairs and past his very side
came the footsteps; but neither living being nor spectral form could his
eyes perceive.

The same noises in the old banqueting-hall. The same fruitless attempts
to witness the revel, or to get at the secret, if any, of the
imposition.

The young man was brave and devoid of superstition. Yet, in spite of
himself, these mysterious sounds, renewed night after night, irritated
his nerves, and preyed upon his quiet. He thought to break through the
spell by inviting a party of living guests. They came, to the number of
thirty or forty; but not for their presence did the invisible revellers
intermit their nocturnal visit. All heard the approach of the carriage,
the steps ascending the staircase, the sounds of revelry in the hall.
And all, when the opened door disclosed, as wont, but darkness and
silence, turned away with a shudder,--and to the subsequent invitation
of their host to favor him again with their company replied by some
shallow apology, which he perfectly understood.

Thus deserted by his friends, and subjected, night after night, to the
same ghastly annoyance, the young man found his health beginning to
suffer, and decided to endure it no longer.

Returning to his father, he informed him that he would receive with
gratitude the rents of the property, but only on condition that he was
not required to reside in its haunted chateau.

The father, ridiculing what he termed his son's superstitious weakness,
declared that he would himself take up his residence there for a time,
assured that he could not fail to discover the true cause of the sounds
that had driven off its former occupants.

But the result belied his expectations. Like his son, he never could
_see_ anything. But the selfsame sounds nightly assailed his ears. He
caused the hall to be cleared out and occupied daily. So long as it