she was no more agreeable to the eye than some others of her family," grimly returned the heavy browed spinster with a compression of her lips. "What beauty Paula has inherited came from her father. Her chief charm in my eyes, however, springs from her pure nature and the unselfish impulses of her heart."
"And in mine," rejoined he quietly. Then with a sudden change of tone as he realized the necessity of saying something definite to this woman in regard to his intentions toward the child, he remarked, "Her great and unusual talents and manifest disposition to learn, demand as you say, superior advantages to any she can have in a small country town like this, fruitful as it has already been to her under your wise and fostering care and such shall she have; but just when and how I cannot say till I have seen my wife and learned what her wishes are likely to be in regard to the subject."
"You are very kind, sir," returned Miss Belinda. "I have no doubt as to the good-will of your intentions, and the child shall be prepared at once for a change."
"And will the child," he exclaimed with a smile as Paula re-entered the room, "be so kind as to give me her company in the walk I must now take to the cars?"
"Of course," replied her aunt before the young girl could speak, "we owe you that much attention I am sure."
And so it was that when he came to retrace his way through the village with its heavy memories, he had a guardian spirit at his side that robbed them of their power to sadden and oppress.
"What shall I say for you to the grim, city streets when I get back?" inquired he as they hastened on over the snow covered road.
"Say to them from me? O you may give them my greeting," she responded half shyly, half confidingly. Evidently for her he was one of those rare persons whose presence is perfect freedom and with whom she could not only think her best but speak it also. "I should like to make their acquaintance, but indeed they would have to do well to vie in attraction with these white roads girded by their silver-limbed trees. The very rush of life must seem oppressive. So many hopes, so many fears, so many interests jostling you at every step! Yet the thought is exhilarating too; don't you find it so?"
It was the first question she had asked him and he knew not how to reply. Her eyes were so confiding, he could not bear to shake her faith in his imagined superiority. Yet what thoughts had he ever cherished in walking the busy streets, save those connected with his own selfish hopes and fears, plans and operations? "I have no doubt," said he after a moment's pause, "that I have felt this exhilaration of which you speak. Certainly the hurrying masses in Broadway awaken a far different sensation in a man, than this solitary stretch of country road."
"Yet the road has its companionships," she murmured. "In the city one thinks most of men, but in the country, of God. Its very solitude compels you."
"Compels you," he involuntarily answered. And shuddered as he said it, remembering days when he trod these very roads with anything but reverence in his heart for the Creator of the landscape before him. "Not every one has the inner vision, my child, to see the love and wisdom back of the works, or rather most men have a vision so short it does not reach so far. Yet I think I can understand what you mean and might even experience your emotions if my eyes had leisure to explore this space and my thoughts to rise out of their usual depressing atmosphere of care and anxiety. You did not think I was a busy man, he continued," observing her gaze of wonder. "You thought riches brought ease; if you ever come to think, 'most of men' you will learn that the wealthy man is the greatest worker, for his rest comes not night or day."
She shook her head with a sudden doubt. "It is a problem," she said, "which my knowledge of geometry does not help me to solve."
"No," assented he; "and one in which even your fanciful soul would fail to find any poetry. But stop, Paula; isn't this the place where I found you that day, and you showed me the view up the river?"
"Yes, and it was on that stone I sat; it has a milk-white cushion now; and there is where you stood, looking so tall and grand to my childish eyes! The gates are of pearl now," she said, pointing to the snow-covered slopes in the west. "I wish the sky had been clear to-night and you could have seen the effect of a rosy sunset falling over those domes of ice and snow."
"It would leave me less to expect when I come again," he responded almost gayly. "The next time we will have the sunset, Paula."
She smiled and they hastened on, presently finding themselves in the village streets. Suddenly she paused. "Small towns have their mysteries as well as great cities," said she; "we are not without ours, look."
He turned, followed with a glance the direction of her pointing finger and started in his sudden surprise. She had indicated to him the house whose ghostly and frowning front bore written across its grim gray boards, such an inscription of painful remembrance. "It is a solitary looking place, isn't it?" she went on, innocent of the pain she was inflicting. "No one lives there or ever will, I imagine. Do you see that board nailed across the front door?"
He forced himself to look. He did more, he fixed his eyes upon the desolate structure before him until the aspect of its huge unpainted walls with their long rows of sealed-up windows and high smokeless chimneys was impressed indelibly upon his mind. The large front door with its weird and solemn barrier was the last thing upon which his eye rested.
"Yes," said he, and involuntarily asked what it meant.
"We do not know exactly," she responded. "It was nailed across there by the men who followed Colonel Japha to the grave. Colonel Japha was the owner of the house," she proceeded, too interested to observe the shadow which the utterance of that name had invoked upon his brow. "He was a peculiar man I judge, and had suffered great wrongs they say; at all events his life was very solitary and sad, and on his deathbed he made his neighbors promise him that they would carry out his body through that door and then seal it up against any further ingress or egress forever. His wishes were respected, and from that day to this no one has ever entered that door."
"But the house!" stammered Mr. Sylvester in anything but his usual tone, "surely it has not been deserted all these years!"
"Ah," said she, "now we come to the greatest mystery of all." And laying her hand timidly on his arm, she drew his attention to the form of a decrepit old lady just then advancing towards them down the street "Do you see that aged figure?" she asked. "Every evening at this hour, winter and summer, stormy weather or clear, she is seen to leave her home up the street and come down to this forsaken dwelling, open the worm-eaten gate before you, cross the otherwise untrodden garden and enter the house by a side door which she opens with a huge key she carries in her pocket. For just one hour by the clock she remains there, and then she is seen to issue in the falling dusk, with a countenance whose heavy dejection is in striking contrast to the expression of hope with which she invariably enters. Why she makes this pilgrimage and for what purpose she secludes herself for a stated time each day in this otherwise deserted mansion, no man knows nor is it possible to determine, for though she is a worthy woman and approachable enough on all other topics, on this she is absolutely mute."
Mr. Sylvester started and surveyed the woman as she passed with an anxious gaze. "I know her," he muttered; "she was a connection of – of the family, who inhabited this house." He could not speak the name.
"Yes, so they say, and the owner of this house, though she does not live here. Did you notice how she looked at me? She often does that, just as if she wanted to speak. But she always goes by and opens the gate as you see her now and takes out the big key and – "
"Come away," cried Mr. Sylvester with sudden impulse, seizing Paula by the hand and hurrying her down the street. "She is a walking goblin; you must have nothing to do with such uncanny folk." And endeavoring to turn off this irresistible display of feeling by a show of pleasantry he laughed aloud, but in a strained and unnatural way that made her eyes lift in unconscious amazement.
"You are infected by the atmosphere of unreality that pervades the spot," said she, "I do not wonder." And with the gentle perversity that sometimes affects the most thoughtful amongst us, she went on talking upon the unwelcome subject. "I know of some folks who invariably cross to the other side of the street at night, rather than go through the shadows of the two gaunt poplars which guard that house. Yet there has been no murder committed there or any great crime that I know of,