within a year or two, been cheaply repaired to render it habitable;
I say cheaply, because the work had been done in a surface manner,
and was already decaying as to the paint and plaster, though the
colors were fresh. A lop-sided board drooped over the garden wall,
announcing that it was "to let on very reasonable terms, well
furnished." It was much too closely and heavily shadowed by trees,
and, in particular, there were six tall poplars before the front
windows, which were excessively melancholy, and the site of which
had been extremely ill chosen.

It was easy to see that it was an avoided house--a house that was
shunned by the village, to which my eye was guided by a church
spire some half a mile off--a house that nobody would take. And
the natural inference was, that it had the reputation of being a
haunted house.

No period within the four-and-twenty hours of day and night is so
solemn to me, as the early morning. In the summer-time, I often
rise very early, and repair to my room to do a day's work before
breakfast, and I am always on those occasions deeply impressed by
the stillness and solitude around me. Besides that there is
something awful in the being surrounded by familiar faces asleep--
in the knowledge that those who are dearest to us and to whom we
are dearest, are profoundly unconscious of us, in an impassive
state, anticipative of that mysterious condition to which we are
all tending--the stopped life, the broken threads of yesterday, the
deserted seat, the closed book, the unfinished but abandoned
occupation, all are images of Death. The tranquillity of the hour
is the tranquillity of Death. The color and the chill have the
same association. Even a certain air that familiar household