._ What do you read, my lord?
_Ham._ Words, words, words.
--Hamlet.

MRS. BELDEN paused, lost in the sombre shadow which these words were
calculated to evoke, and a short silence fell upon the room. It was
broken by my asking for some account of the occurrence she had just
mentioned, it being considered a mystery how Hannah could have found
entrance into her house without the knowledge of the neighbors.

"Well," said she, "it was a chilly night, and I had gone to bed early
(I was sleeping then in the room off this) when, at about a quarter to
one--the last train goes through R---- at 12.50--there came a low knock
on the window-pane at the head of my bed. Thinking that some of the
neighbors were sick, I hurriedly rose on my elbow and asked who
was there. The answer came in low, muffled tones, 'Hannah, Miss
Leavenworth's girl! Please let me in at the kitchen door.' Startled at
hearing the well-known voice, and fearing I knew not what, I caught up
a lamp and hurried round to the door. 'Is any one with you?' I asked.
'No,' she replied. 'Then come in.' But no sooner had she done so than
my strength failed me, and I had to sit down, for I saw she looked very
pale and strange, was without baggage, and altogether had the appearance
of some wandering spirit. 'Hannah!' I gasped, 'what is it? what has
happened? what brings you here in this condition and at this time
of night?' 'Miss Leavenworth has sent me,' she replied, in the low,
monotonous tone of one repeating a lesson by rote. 'She told me to come
here; said you would keep me. I am not to go out of the house, and no
one is to know I am here.' 'But why?' I asked, trembling with a thousand
undefined fears; 'what has occurred?' 'I dare not say,' she whispered;
'I am forbid; I am just to stay here, and keep quiet.' 'But,' I began,
helping her to take off her shawl,--the dingy blanket advertised for
in the papers--'you must tell me. She surely did not forbid you to tell
_me?_' 'Yes she did; every one,' the girl replied, growing white in her
persistence, 'and I never break my word; fire couldn't draw it out
of me.' She looked so determined, so utterly unlike herself, as I
remembered her in the meek, unobtrusive days of our old acquaintance,
that I could do nothing but stare at her. 'You will keep me,' she said;
'you will not turn me away?' 'No,' I said, 'I will not turn you away.'
'And tell no one?' she went on. 'And tell no one,' I repeated.

"This seemed to reliev