names of the two persons chiefly concerned. I will not avail
myself of any particulars I may have since received concerning
the localities of the detail, but suffer them to rest under the
same general description in which they were first related to me;
and for the same reason I will not add to or diminish the
narrative by any circumstance, whether more or less material, but
simply rehearse, as I heard it, a story of supernatural terror.

About the end of the American war, when the officers of Lord
Cornwallis's army, which surrendered at Yorktown, and others, who
had been made prisoners during the impolitic and ill-fated
controversy, were returning to their own country, to relate their
adventures, and repose themselves after their fatigues, there was
amongst them a general officer, to whom Miss S. gave the name of
Browne, but merely, as I understood, to save the inconvenience of
introducing a nameless agent in the narrative. He was an officer
of merit, as well as a gentleman of high consideration for family
and attainments.

Some business had carried General Browne upon a tour through the
western counties, when, in the conclusion of a morning stage, he
found himself in the vicinity of a small country town, which
presented a scene of uncommon beauty, and of a character
peculiarly English.

The little town, with its stately old church, whose tower bore
testimony to the devotion of ages long past, lay amidst pastures
and cornfields of small extent, but bounded and divided with
hedgerow timber of great age and size. There were few marks of
modern improvement. The environs of the place intimated neither