red yards
or so as well as I could calculate, rose a black mass, which gradually
resolved itself, as my eyes became accustomed to the twilight, into
a long, low, and ancient house, with a hedge of evergreens and a
pitch-black paling in front of it. The footman led the way toward the
paling through the boards and the bricks, the oyster shells and the
broken crockery, that strewed the ground. And this was "Prince Dexter's
Palace!"

There was a gate in the pitch-black paling, and a
bell-handle--discovered with great difficulty. Pulling at the handle,
the footman set in motion, to judge by the sound produced, a bell of
prodigious size, fitter for a church than a house.

While we were waiting for admission, Mrs. Macallan pointed to the low,
dark line of the old building.

"There is one of his madnesses," she said. "The speculators in this new
neighborhood have offered him I don't know how many thousand pounds for
the ground that house stands on. It was originally the manor-house of
the district. Dexter purchased it many years since in one of his freaks
of fancy. He has no old family associations with the place; the walls
are all but tumbling about his ears; and the money offered would really
be of use to him. But no! He refused the proposal of the enterprising
speculators by letter in these words: 'My house is a standing monument
of the picturesque and beautiful, amid the mean, dishonest, and
groveling constructions of a mean, dishonest, and groveling age. I keep
my house, gentlemen, as a useful lesson to you. Look at it while you
are building around me, and blush, if you can, for your work.' Was there
ever such an absurd letter written yet? Hush! I hear footsteps in the
garden. Here comes his cousin. His cousin is a woman. I may as well tell
you that, or you might mistake her for a man in the dark."

A rough, deep voice, which I should certainly never have supposed to be
the voice of a woman, hailed us from the inner side of the paling.

"Who's there?"

"Mrs. Macallan," answered my mother-in-law.

"What do you want?"

"We want to see Dexter."

"You can't see him."

"Why not?"

"What did you say your name was?"

"Macallan. Mrs. Macallan. Eustace Macallan's mother. _Now_ do you
understand?"

The voice muttered and grunted behind the paling, and a key turned in
the lock of the gate.

Admitted to the garden, in the deep shadow of the shrubs, I could see
nothing distinctly of the woman with the rough voice, e