son, who was a
minor at his death, grew up and assumed his natural proprietorship. The
hut--it was nothing but a hut now--had remained untouched--a ruin no
longer habitable. The spirit, as well as the letter, of that particular
clause in his father's will had so far been literally obeyed. The walls
being of stone, had withstood decay, and still rose straight and firm;
but the roof had begun to sag, and whatever of woodwork yet remained
about it had rotted and fallen away, till the building was little more
than a skeleton, with holes for its windows and an open gap for its
door.

As for the surrounding wall, it no longer stood out, an incongruous
landmark, from its background of trees and shrubbery. Young shoots had
started up and old branches developed till brick and paint alike were
almost concealed from view by a fresh girdle of greenery.

And now comes the second mystery.

Sometime after this latter Ocumpaugh had attained his majority--his name
was Edwin, and he was, as you already imagine, the father of the present
Philo--he made an attempt--a daring one it was afterward called--to
brighten this neglected spot and restore it to some sort of use, by
giving a supper to his friends within its broken-down walls.

This supper was no orgy, nor were the proprieties in any way
transgressed by so harmless a festivity; yet from this night a singular
change was observed in this man. Pleasure no longer charmed him, and
instead of repeating the experiment I have just described, he speedily
evinced such an antipathy to the scene of his late revel that only from
the greatest necessity would he ever again visit that part of the
grounds.

What did it mean? What had occurred on that night of innocent enjoyment
to disturb or alarm him? Had some note in his own conscience been struck
by an act which, in his cooler moments, he may have looked upon as a
species of sacrilege? Or had some whisper from the past reached him amid
the feasting, the laughing and the jesting, to render these old walls
henceforth intolerable to him? He never said, but whatever the cause of
this sudden aversion, the effect was deep and promised to be lasting.
For, one morning, not long after this event, a party of workmen was seen
leaving these grounds at daybreak, and soon it was noised about that a
massive brick partition had been put up across the interior of this same
pavilion, completely shutting off, for no reason that any one could see,
some ten feet