early love, Rose Velderkaust, whose mysterious fate must always remain
matter of speculation.




An Account of Some Strange
Disturbances in Aungier Street


It is not worth telling, this story of mine--at least, not worth
writing. Told, indeed, as I have sometimes been called upon to tell it,
to a circle of intelligent and eager faces, lighted up by a good
after-dinner fire on a winter's evening, with a cold wind rising and
wailing outside, and all snug and cosy within, it has gone off--though I
say it, who should not--indifferent well. But it is a venture to do as
you would have me. Pen, ink, and paper are cold vehicles for the
marvellous, and a "reader" decidedly a more critical animal than a
"listener." If, however, you can induce your friends to read it after
nightfall, and when the fireside talk has run for a while on thrilling
tales of shapeless terror; in short, if you will secure me the _mollia
tempora fandi_, I will go to my work, and say my say, with better heart.
Well, then, these conditions presupposed, I shall waste no more words,
but tell you simply how it all happened.

My cousin (Tom Ludlow) and I studied medicine together. I think he would
have succeeded, had he stuck to the profession; but he preferred the
Church, poor fellow, and died early, a sacrifice to contagion,
contracted in the noble discharge of his duties. For my present purpose,
I say enough of his character when I mention that he was of a sedate but