The Argosy — page 154: what you’re looking at

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

The Grey Cottage. 141 I must say he was! I asked him the question again in a louder tone, thinking he might be deaf; but he never answered, only con- tinued to stare at me.’ It was the dress of old Vallyer, ma’am; he never wore any other, and I’ll leave you to judge what the company at the White Hart thought of it. A deal of talk went about Green- ford next day.” ‘‘ Where is the old maid-servant ?” “She went away. ‘They left her in the house to show it, but after a week or two she took the key to the agent, saying there was something she did not like about the place, and she shouldn’t stop in it. Just before the Miss Jessops took it, that was.” ‘No wonder the Miss Jessops were frightened away from the cottage if such tales were told to them,” I remarked. ‘‘ Why, you Greenford people must have driven them away!” ‘¢ Ah, well, I see, ma’am, you don’t believe in it. It was said the ladies saw him in the house as well as out of it, though I can’t speak for certain as to what happened. They went away all quiet and composed like; they didn’t want to be laughed at.” We found that Mr. Vallyer’s ghost was firmly believed in by the neighbourhood. Fortunately my nieces were sensible girls, and only laughed. The stories told were made a source of amusement to them, and their young friends. ‘They treated the subject as a good joke; sometimes intruding irreverently near the confines of that strange and mysterious world beyond whose veil we know so little, and which, it has always seemed to me, should be treated with respect, if not with awe. On one occasion I felt obliged to expostulate. ‘Why, Aunt Cameron,” exclaimed Hilda, laughing, “ I am almost sure you believe in the ghost !” Cecily took the matter more seriously, and agreed with me that too much fun had been made. After that, it was a favourite joke of Hilda’s to tell her friends confidentially that her Aunt and Cecily believed in old Vallyer’s reappearance. Weeks passed away, during which we saw nothing, and the winter set in. A young nephew of mine, and cousin of my nieces, came to spend some days with us; chiefly, I believe, on account of the skating. His arrival made Hilda and Cecily think it high time to make a little return for the kindness and hospitality which had been shown to us; or, rather, to induce me to think it. I let myself be persuaded, and cards went out for a small evening party. The weather was now intensely cold. ‘The river had been flooded before the frost set in; not only that, but also the meadows were frozen over. We might almost have been at the North Pole, such an expanse of snow and ice did we overlook. The village seemed skating mad ; and, not content with the day’s amusement, our young people would remain on the ice until late at night, for the moon, nearing the full, shone brilliantly in a cloudless sky. COMmMicaooks (CO) im