reached, and when our stay, which was
prolonged to nearly a month, was on the eve of
terminating, all our searching, listenings, and
inquiries, left us no wiser than before.

"On the night before our intended departure,
we were sitting, as usual, in this room, a little
disgust at having failed in tracing the source
of the baffling sounds. On this occasion, they
were in full flow, and louder than at any
previous time. There seemed to be dissensions in
the council. Every now and then a low roar
broke the monotonous murmur, but whether of
reprobation or applause, was doubtful as ever.
I must own that, while listening to these
unearthly disputants, I was not unconscious of a
sort of awe, while, at the same time, our
complete bewilderment had in it something of the
burlesque.

"It had been a day of sudden storms, and
the rain, at times, descending in torrents, almost
drowned the mysterious voices, although it
appeared to us that the latter exalted themselves,
to meet the emergency. At length, in the crisis
of one of these storms, there occurred a
thunderous murmur, so loud and positive, that
Charley fairly started from his chair!

"'Something's coming!' he shouted, and was
snatching up a candle, when the gardener, pale
and excited, dashed into the room, and uttered,
as usual, one word:

"'Run."

"'What's the matter, man?'"

"'House!'"

"'What?'"

"'Fallin'!'"

"And he bolted from the room.

"A noise as of a crashing wall and a rushing
cataract roused us to action. We flung ourselves
down the stairs, and were instantly waist
deep in water, volumes of which came welling
through the bath-room door. Quickly wading
into the court-yard, we learned what had come
to pass, subsequently more fully understood.
A large spring, that must have been for some
time mining its way in the direction of that
which already supplied the bath, had effected a
lateral junction with the latter, when the two
together, overflowing all obstacles, natural or
artificial, had burst into the house. How far
their eccentric proceedings had contributed to
the voice-like sounds I have described, I cannot
say. I am told, however, that such a cause has
produced still more extraordinary phenomena
than these, and, also, that atmospheric changes,
rain-fall, &c., and the disuse of the bath, when
the house was untenanted (whereby the spring
found a readier outlet), would account for the
intermittent character of the sounds. All I can
tell you is that the mansion did not fall; that
the voices ceased with the repair of the wall;
and that my friend Mumford, finding that it was
easier for his house to acquire a bad name than
to get rid of it, and that Hilderton would be
'haunted' till its fall, sold it to me for a song."

"Then, uncle, there is no ghost, after all?"
said Sophy, with a sigh.

"I trust it is the only drawback you will
experience, my dear," said the colonel.
"Remember, I didn't promise you one. Stay, though,
I can give you a little comfort. The title of
my residence, 'Haunted' Hilderton, has not
unfrequently started the subject of supernatural
visitations among my guests, and here," he
took from a drawer a small roll of manuscript,
"written in a fair Italian hand, by a young
visitor of mine, of mellow faith, are preserved
some half-dozen of the narratives to which those
conversations gave rise. I shall make but one
comment respecting them. They are authentic.
Or, to speak more modestly, I would discredit
my own senses sooner than the veracity of
those who related them as facts."

The party settled themselves comfortably, and
by the light of the colonel's cigar, and little
else, Miss Ellen's sweet voice was soon heard,
reading:

I. THE WARNING VOICE.

Captain B., of the—th regiment of the line,
married a near connexion of the narrator. After
the ceremony, the pair left London for a small
seaport town, in which they had resolved to
pass the honeymoon. The beautiful scenery of
the neighbourhood tempted them to longer and
longer daily rambles, and, one night, much
fatigued, they had retired somewhat earlier than
common, when Mrs. B. was suddenly aroused
from an incipient doze by a confused light in
the room, which presently became intensified
to an almost painful degree. No unusual
object was visible; but a voice proceeding from
the foot of the bed, uttered, in low but
perfectly distinct accents, these words—

"In three years you will be a widow."

Much alarmed, Mrs. B. renewed the efforts
she had already made to awaken Captain B.,
but in vain. As the light died gradually away,
her courage returned, and she felt inclined to
rejoice that he had been spared hearing this
strange prediction. Resolving to conceal it
from him, she nevertheless wrote, the next day,
to her mother, Lady——, and related all the
particulars.

Time passed, and the spring of the third year
found the B.s at Halifax, preparing to embark
for England, the passage-money, sixty pounds,
having been already paid. On the night before
their intended departure, Mrs. B. had a dream,
in which she thought that she was pacing, with
her husband, across a vast plain. He hurried
her forward so fast and so incessantly, that she
became alarmed. Night was approaching.
Suddenly she withdrew her arm from her husband,
when the latter, darting wildly forward, was
lost to sight in a sort of rushy swamp that lay
in the centre of the plain—the rushes waving
and bending over the spot in which he had
seemed to disappear.

Awakened by the shock of what had happened,
she was conscious of the mysterious
light in the room, and recognised the voice she
had formerly heard, as it announced:

"The third year has come."

In the morning she told her husband that
she had had a very unpleasant dream, which
had left upon her mind a strong presentiment
that some evil would attend their proposed