Those who have seen the picture in which the wedding-guests are
shown flying from its yawning doorway, will not be especially
interested in the quiet, almost solemn aspect it presented as I
passed up the low steps and laid my hand upon the knob of the
old-fashioned front door.

Not that I expected to win an entrance thereby, but because it is
my nature to approach everything in a common-sense way. Conceive
then my astonishment when at the first touch the door yielded. It
was not even latched.

"So! so!" thought I. "This is no fool's job; some one is in the
house."

I had provided myself with an ordinary pocket-lantern, and, when I
had convinced Hibbard that I fully meant to enter the house and
discover for myself who had taken advantage of the popular prejudice
against it to make a secret refuge or rendezvous of its decayed old
rooms, I took out this lantern and held it in readiness.

"We may strike a hornets' nest," I explained to Hibbard, whose feet
seemed very heavy even for a man of his size. "But I'm going in and
so are you. Only, let me suggest that we first take off our shoes.
We can hide them in these bushes."

"I always catch cold when I walk barefooted," mumbled my brave
companion; but receiving no reply he drew off his shoes and dropped
them beside mine in the cluster of stark bushes which figure so
prominently in the illustrations that I have just mentioned. Then
he took out his revolver, and cocking it, stood waiting, while I