Some such thoughts might have been passing through the minds of the
assembled neighbours; and they could not be said to be the less true
that a shrunk and partially-withered right arm showed that the doom of
the woman had been so far precipitated by the still remaining effects of
an old stroke of palsy. And the gossip confirmed this, going also into
particulars of observation,--how she had kept herself so to herself as
if she wished to avoid the neighbours,--a fact which to an extent
justified their imputed want of attention; how almost the only
individual who had visited her was a peculiar being, in the shape of a
very little man, with a slight limp and thin pleasant features,
illuminated by a pair of dark, penetrating eyes. For years and years had
he been seen, always about the same hour of the day, ascending her
stair, and carrying a flagon, supposed to contain articles of food. Then
the gossiping embraced the furniture and other articles in the room,
which, however they might have been unnoticed before, had now assumed
the usual interest when seen in the blue light of the acted tragedy: the
small mahogany table and the two chairs--how strange that they should be
of mahogany!--and some of the few marrowless plates in the rack over the
fireplace, why, they were absolute china! but above all, the exquisite
little bureau of French manufacture, with its drawers, its desk, and
pigeon-holes, and cunning slides--what on earth was it doing in that
room, when its value even to a broker would have kept the woman alive
for months? Questions these put by a roused curiosity, and perhaps not
worth answer. Was not she a woman, and was not that enough?

Not enough; for legendary details cluster round startling events, and
often carry a moral which may prevent a repetition of these; and so, had
it not been for this apparently inexplicable death by starvation, our
wonderful story might never have gathered listeners round the evening
fire. We must go back some twenty years before the date of the said