Then I stole down to the kitchen, and told Dorothy I
had made up my mind. I would carry my darling back to my father's house
in Applethwaite; where, if we lived humbly, we lived at peace. I said I
had been frightened enough with the old lord's organ-playing; but now
that I had seen for myself this little moaning child, all decked out as
no child in the neighbourhood could be, beating and battering to get
in, yet always without any sound or noise--with the dark wound on its
right shoulder; and that Miss Rosamond had known it again for the
phantom that had nearly lured her to her death (which Dorothy knew was
true); I would stand it no longer.

I saw Dorothy change colour once or twice. When I had done, she told me
she did not think I could take Miss Rosamond with me, for that she was
my lord's ward, and I had no right over her; and she asked me would I
leave the child that I was so fond of just for sounds and sights that
could do me no harm; and that they had all had to get used to in their
turns? I was all in a hot, trembling passion; and I said it was very
well for her to talk; that knew what these sights and noises betokened,
and that had, perhaps, had something to do with the spectre child while
it was alive. And I taunted her so, that she told me all she knew at
last; and then I wished I had never been told, for it only made me more
afraid than ever.

She said she had heard the tale from old neighbours that were alive
when she was first married; when folks used to come to the hall
sometimes, before it had got such a bad name on the country side: it
might not be true, or it might, what she had been told.

The old lord was Miss Furnivall's father--Miss Grace, as Dorothy called
her, for Miss Maude was the elder, and Miss Furnivall by rights. The
old lord was eaten up with pride. Such a proud man was never seen or
heard of; and his daughters were like him. No one was good enough to
wed them, although they had choice enough; for they were the great
beauties of their day, as I had seen by their portraits, where they
hung in the state drawing-room. But, as the old saying is, 'Pride will
have a fall;' and these two haughty beauties fell in love with the same
man, and he no better than a foreign musician, whom their father had
down from London to play music with him at the Manor House. For, above
all things, next to his pride, the old lord loved music. He could play
on nearly every instrument that ever was heard of, and it