The Arm Chair Library No. 79: The Haunted Homestead — page 56: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

162 ae ee eS a CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE ee haudles lat last succeeded in palling out, the | teided her hand to place the ring in mine, it drawer, whose ponderous weight and creaking movement recalled to my mind with a new thrill of horror the noiseless ease with which I had seen it move by that wan mourner of the revious night. : 3 Was it but a dream? or had the spirit of my dead mother indeed visited me, and by some subtle power impressed upon my mind the image of the opening drawer, the concealed paper, so vividly that I deemed them realities ? his question I often asked myself in later lays, bat not as [ dragged the great drawer out upon the floor, and stooped to look into the dusty cavity bebind it. And there it lay! a yellow, mouldering pa- per, that, as I ¢g it, separated from the wood with a tearing sound, as if time and. mil- dew had connected them by a thousand mi- nute fibres. Evidently it had not been stirred for years. With an eager cry I opened out the folded paper, and from it dropped a little tarnished ring, that, rolling swiftly across the floor, paused, and fell just where the dark stain of the faded carpet met that of the oaken floor. I screamed-with nervous horror atthe con- tact, and ranto pick it up; bnt Esther seized my arm,exclaiming, in the broad, Scotch accent of her youth, seldom perceptible unless she was agitated— ** Dinna touch the bluid, bairn! Dinna touch your father’s bluid! It’s uncanny; it’s an ill freit!” ** Pick it u mother’s w own.” Esther cautiously obeyed me; but as she ex- yourself, then, nurse, Itis my ding-ring; 1 must have it for my fell again,.and this time ran swift and glitter- ME.t0 * wide crack in the floor, where it sud- enly disappeared. - Let it 25? cried I, ‘“‘Itis herown, and she does not wish that another finger saould wear it. Look rather at this. Oh, Esther! it is the marriage certificate of my father and mother. They were innocent; and I may yet be the wife of an honest man!” peaking these words, and falling on the breast of my faithful old friend, I wept at last, wept away the tears that had lain hot and heavy on my brain ever since I had read those maddening taunts and words of shame. Those 1 le I verily believe, saved my reason, or my Oi di That same morning we left Moorhouse, never to return. There it standsstill, alone and py in its desolation, the dim old mausoleum of my mother’s, youth and love and life. Perhaps she wanders there eyen now in the ghastly moonlight, wringing her poor, wan hands and sob eee blood that before her very eyes drained the heart of that young husband whom she had loved so passionately. | My first confidanton reaching home was Maurice, Burton, and he at once took. the nec- essary steps for certifying the marriage of my parents, and my. birth: bat, as I was married almost immediatety to kim, I never took my father’s name, but retained that of the grand- father who had stood in the place of both par- ents to me, So passed the crisis of my life; and, fearful though it was, both in. experience and in memory, [now am able to remember _thank- fully my night in the Chamber to the East. ee CIRCUMSTANTIAL EVIDENCE. BY MRS. M, Vv. VICTOR. We are spirits, clad in veils; Man by man was never seen, All our f He communion fails To remove the shadowy screen, —Rev. CO. P. Cranch, WE were going home todinner. My friend had been married nearly a year, and had quite recently gone to housekeeping. had toon away from the city a few weeks,and,returni the previous day, was immediately invited t¢, dine with him at the earliest time convenient to myself. I knew by the cordial, almost ex- ul invitation, that Chester was satisfied with his domestic arrangements, and expected me to be pleased. He was a man of ient fortune to enable him to tify his tastes in 3 the the Fif oT ales tis te side, had married a beautiful woman of poor fam- uy» sO that I sympat aie i pe ge 3, and had no doubt of passing a m0 than ordinarily agreeable araating : We had been intimate from boyhood, and I had been groomsman at the wedding. :. _ We left his place of business together, wal ing up Broadway some distance, as the cars were too crowded to be comfortable, skillfully our way through the stream of silket splendor which is at | gh-tide at about oe clock of sunny afternoons. To get out 0 the way of ¢rinoline, as well as to shorten wa walk a little, we crossed the street and skit of Madison Square. As we Ppa * boo Cc com s-com