The Argosy — page 261: what you’re looking at

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

242 Lhe Mysteries of Heron Dyke. face of the looking-glass so mysteriously covered up. There had followed the positive assertions of the two maids, Ann and Martha, that they had seen Katherine—and both of them had known her well—looking down at them over the balusters of the gallery. After that, came Mrs. Carlyon’s fright ; although in her case no face had been seen, but only the presence of a mysterious something which had brushed past her in the dusk and vanished. Neither could Betsy Tucker’s revelation, that she had heard footsteps in the corridor outside her bed-room on the night of the storm, and had seen the handle of her door turned, and the fright to the girl in consequence, be entirely ignored : for, after it came to Miss Winter’s ears, she had made enquiries of her servants and could not learn that any one of them had been in the corridor that night. They had all been too much terrified by the storm, they declared, to quit their beds. Ella did not, would not, think much of this incident. The old house was full of strange noises, especially in stormy weather, and she herself, by giving way to her fancies, could readily have got into the way of believing that she heard footfalls and whispers and rustlings, for which she could not account, almost every night of her life. But the strange assertion made by Maria Kettle was a very different matter; Ella could not help attaching more weight to it than to all that had gone before: and the extraordinary belief of poor Susan Keen, that her sister was alive and in the house, occurred unpleasantly to her mind. Could it be? Could it by any possibility be true that Katherine Keen was still alive, that she was hiding some- where in the old Hall, and came out into the dark corridors on occasion to frighten people ? Was it in very truth she herself, and not her spirit, that had been seen at different times? Ella’s heart ached as it had never ached before. No, not even when the girl disappeared and could nowhere be found ; though from that day life had never been quite the same to her. The dreadful uncertainty as to what had become of Katherine had added tenfold to the pain of losing her, and now, after the lapse of so long a time, it seemed as if the uncertainty would never be cleared up. But what if she had been alive all this time; alive, and close by ?—What if she had never quitted the roof of the Hall? Ella Winter’s good sense urged her to reject such a theory as utterly untenable, certain difficulties present- ing themselves palpably before her; but it urged her equally to reject that other theory of supernatural visitations. Between the two she knew not what to think. That Katherine had really been seen the evidence seemed conclusive. But had she been seen in the flesh, or in the spirit ? When a problem is put before you, which you find it impossible to solve, however anxious to do so, it is sometimes wise to lay it by for © - awhile and turn the attention to other things, trusting to Him and “the unforeseen” to do for you what you cannot do for yourself. Thus did Ella Winter in the present case. She was puzzled and Gomichbooks