upon it altogether.

I had never shown any wish to return to my own home since I had been
taken away as a little boy, and no one had ever pressed me to do so.
The place had been kept in order after a fashion, and did not seem to
have suffered during the fifteen years or more of my absence. Nothing
earthly could affect those old gray walls that had fought the elements
for so many centuries. The garden was more wild than I remembered it;
the marble causeways about the pools looked more yellow and damp than
of old, and the whole place at first looked smaller. It was not until
I had wandered about the house and grounds for many hours that I
realized the huge size of the home where, I was to live in solitude.
Then I began to delight in it, and my resolution to live alone grew
stronger.

The people had turned out to welcome me, of course, and I tried to
recognize the changed faces of the old gardener and the old
housekeeper, and to call them by name. My old nurse I knew at once.
She had grown very gray since she heard the coffins fall in the nursery
fifteen years before, but her strange eyes were the same, and the look
in them woke all my old memories. She went over the house with me.

"And how is the Woman of the Water?" I asked, trying to laugh a little.
"Does she still play in the moonlight?"

"She is hungry," answered the Welshwoman, in a low voice.

"Hungry? Then we will feed her." I laughed. But old Judith turned
very pale, and looked at me strangely.

"Feed her? Ay--you will feed her well," she muttered, glancing behind
her at the ancient housekeeper, who tottered after us with feeble steps
through the halls and passages.

I did not think much of her words. She had always talked oddly, as
Welshwomen will, and though I was very melancholy I am sure I was not
superstitious, and I was certainly not timid. Only, as in a far-off
dream, I seemed to see her standing with the light in her hand and
muttering, "The heavy one--all of lead," and then leading a little boy
through the long corridors to see his father lying dead in a great easy
chair before a smouldering fire. So we went over the house, and I
chose the rooms where I would live; and the servants I had brought with
me ordered and arranged everything, and I had no more trouble. I did
not care what they did provided I was left in peace and was not
expected to give directions; for I was more listless than ever, owing
to the effects of my illness at