that's stole your honor's things?"

"I hardly know what to think of it," pursued the bereaved lieutenant,
still speaking in soliloquy, with his eye resting dubiously on the
chamber-door. "I locked myself in, that's certain; and--but there must
be some other entrance to the room--pooh! I remember--the private
staircase; how could I be such a fool?" and he crossed the chamber to
where a low oaken doorcase was dimly visible in a distant corner. He
paused before it. Nothing now interfered to screen it from observation;
but it bore tokens of having been at some earlier period concealed by
tapestry, remains of which yet clothed the walls on either side the
portal.

"This way they must have come," said Seaforth; "I wish with all my heart
I had caught them!"

"Och! the kittens!" sighed Mr. Barney Maguire.

But the mystery was yet as far from being solved as before. True, there
_was_ the "other door"; but then that, too, on examination, was even
more firmly secured than the one which opened on the gallery--two heavy
bolts on the inside effectually prevented any _coup de main_ on the
lieutenant's _bivouac_ from that quarter. He was more puzzled than ever;
nor did the minutest inspection of the walls and floor throw any light
upon the subject: one thing only was clear--the breeches were gone! "It
is _very_ singular," said the lieutenant.

* * * * *

Tappington (generally called Tapton) Everard is an antiquated but
commodious manor-house in the eastern division of the county of Kent. A
former proprietor had been high-sheriff in the days of Elizabeth, and
many a dark and dismal tradition was yet extant of the licentiousness of
his life, and the enormity of his offenses. The Glen, which the keeper's
daughter was seen to enter, but never known to quit, still frowns darkly
as of yore; while an ineradicable blood-stain on the oaken stair yet
bids defiance to the united energies of soap and sand. But it is with
one particular apartment that a deed of more especial atrocity is said
to be connected. A stranger guest--so runs the legend--arrived
unexpectedly at the mansion of the "Bad Sir Giles." They met in
apparent friendship; but the ill-concealed scowl on their master's brow
told the domestics that the visit was not a welcome one; the banquet,
however, was not spared; the wine-cup circulated freely--too freely,
perhaps--for sounds of discord at length reached the ears of even the
excluded serving-m