house. I was received by a solemn man-servant out of livery, was
informed that the family had retired for the night, and was then
led into a large and lofty room where my supper was awaiting me,
in a forlorn manner, at one extremity of a lonesome mahogany
wilderness of dining-table.

I was too tired and out of spirits to eat or drink much,
especially with the solemn servant waiting on me as elaborately as
if a small dinner party had arrived at the house instead of a
solitary man. In a quarter of an hour I was ready to be taken up
to my bedchamber. The solemn servant conducted me into a prettily
furnished room--said, "Breakfast at nine o'clock, sir"--looked all
round him to see that everything was in its proper place, and
noiselessly withdrew.

"What shall I see in my dreams to-night?" I thought to myself, as
I put out the candle; "the woman in white? or the unknown
inhabitants of this Cumberland mansion?" It was a strange
sensation to be sleeping in the house, like a friend of the
family, and yet not to know one of the inmates, even by sight!



VI


When I rose the next morning and drew up my blind, the sea opened
before me joyously under the broad August sunlight, and the
distant coast of Scotland fringed the horizon with its lines of
melting blue.