ome at once, but for this
mystery of Laura's. And when, after cultivating his intimacy with her
for nearly a month, he at last found out, beyond a doubt, that it
related to a love affair which Amelia had not approved of, he felt as if
everything he approached, concerning the matter of his father's letter,
melted into nothingness at his touch.

He acknowledged to himself that he should have been deeply disappointed
if he had discovered anything to justify this letter; and when the full,
low sunlight shone upon his large comfortable old house, glorified the
blossoming orchard and set off the darkness of the ancient yews, he felt
a touch of that sensation, which some people think is not fancy only.
Everything about him seemed familiar. The old-fashioned quaintness was a
part of himself. "The very first time I saw that clean, empty
coach-house," he reflected, "I felt as if I had often played in it. I
almost seemed to hear other boys shouting to me. Is it true that I never
let off squibs and crackers in that yard?"

He walked nearer. How cheerful it all looked, swept up with extra
neatness, and made orderly for the new master's eyes!

"By-the-bye," he thought, catching sight of a heavy old outhouse door,
"there is the ghost story. Having examined all realities so far as I
can, I will try my hand at things unreal--for even now, though I am very
grateful to Providence for such a house and such an inheritance, once
show me a good reason, and over it goes, as it should have done at
first, if my father could have given me one. That door seems just the
sort of thing for a ghost to pass through. I'll look at the book Laura
told me of, and see which door it was."

So the house being now open, and Mr. Melcombe observed by his servants
(who alone were there to give him welcome), he entered, ordered
breakfast, which was spread for him in the "great parlour," and having
now got into the habit of making investigations, had no sooner finished
his meal than he began to look at the notes he had made from what Mrs.
Melcombe had told him of the ghost story.

It was a story that she had not half finished when he recognised it--he
had read it with all its particulars in a book, only with the names and
localities disguised.

"Oh, yes," she answered, when he said so. "It is very well known; it has
always been considered one of the best authenticated stories of its kind
on record, though it was not known beyond the family and the village for