much
as a private dinner-party at Wincot to celebrate the event. Families
in the neighborhood determined to forget the offense which his father's
reserve had given them, and invited him to their houses. The invitations
were politely declined. Civil visitors called resolutely at the Abbey,
and were as resolutely bowed away from the doors as soon as they had
left their cards. Under this combination of sinister and aggravating
circumstances people in all directions took to shaking their heads
mysteriously when the name of Mr. Alfred Monkton was mentioned, hinting
at the family calamity, and wondering peevishly or sadly, as their
tempers inclined them, what he could possibly do to occupy himself month
after month in the lonely old house.

The right answer to this question was not easy to find. It was quite
useless, for ex ample, to apply to the priest for it. He was a very
quiet, polite old gentleman; his replies were always excessively ready
and civil, and appeared at the time to convey an immense quantity of
information; but when they came to be reflected on, it was universally
observed that nothing tangible could ever be got out of them. The
housekeeper, a weird old woman, with a very abrupt and repelling manner,
was too fierce and taciturn to be safely approached. The few indoor
servants had all been long enough in the family to have learned to
hold their tongues in public as a regular habit. It was only from the
farm-servants who supplied the table at the Abbey that any information
could be obtained, and vague enough it was when they came to communicate
it.

Some of them had observed the "young master" walking about the library
with heaps of dusty papers in his hands. Others had heard odd noises
in the uninhabited parts of the Abbey, had looked up, and had seen him
forcing open the old windows, as if to let light and air into the rooms
supposed to have been shut close for years and years, or had discovered
him standing on the perilous summit of one of the crumbling turrets,
never ascended before within their memories, and popularly considered
to be inhabited by the ghosts of the monks who had once possessed the
building. The result of these observations and discoveries, when they
were communicated to others, was of course to impress every one with a
firm belief that "poor young Monkton was going the way that the rest
of the family had gone before him," which opinion always appeared to be
immensely strengthened in the