more sad than ever, at such a melancholy conclusion. To-night I
felt happy, almost for the first time in my life. The gloomy old study
seemed cheerful when I went in. The old pictures on the walls smiled
at me, and I sat down in my deep chair with a new and delightful
sensation that I was not alone. The idea of having seen a ghost, and
of feeling much the better for it, was so absurd that I laughed softly,
as I took up one of the books I had brought with me and began to read.

That impression did not wear off. I slept peacefully, and in the
morning I threw open my windows to the summer air and looked down at
the garden, at the stretches of green and at the colored flower-beds,
at the circling swallows and at the bright water.

"A man might make a paradise of this place," I exclaimed. "A man and a
woman together!"

From that day the old Castle no longer seemed gloomy, and I think I
ceased to be sad; for some time, too, I began to take an interest in
the place, and to try and make it more alive. I avoided my old Welsh
nurse, lest she should damp my humor with some dismal prophecy, and
recall my old self by bringing back memories of my dismal childhood.
But what I thought of most was the ghostly figure I had seen in the
garden that first night after my arrival. I went out every evening and
wandered through the walks and paths; but, try as I might, I did not
see my vision again. At last, after many days, the memory grew more
faint, and my old moody nature gradually overcame the temporary sense
of lightness I had experienced. The summer turned to autumn, and I
grew restless. It began to rain. The dampness pervaded the gardens,
and the outer halls smelled musty, like tombs; the gray sky oppressed
me intolerably. I left the place as it was and went abroad, determined
to try anything which might possibly make a second break in the
monotonous melancholy from which I suffered.

II

Most people would be struck by the utter insignificance of the small
events which, after the death of my parents, influenced my life and
made me unhappy. The gruesome forebodings of a Welsh nurse, which
chanced to be realized by an odd coincidence of events, should not seem
enough to change the nature of a child and to direct the bent of his
character in after years. The little disappointments of schoolboy
life, and the somewhat less childish ones of an uneventful and
undistinguished academic career, should not have sufficed to tu