caught looking at her again. She had got into the habit of
perpetually talking to herself; nay, more, answering herself, and
varying her tones according to the side she took at the moment. It
was no wonder that those who dared to listen outside her door at
night believed that she held converse with some spirit; in short, she
was unconsciously earning for herself the dreadful reputation of a
witch.

Her little dog, which had wandered half over the Continent with her,
was her only companion; a dumb remembrancer of happier days. Once he
was ill; and she carried him more than three miles, to ask about his
management from one who had been groom to the last Squire, and had
then been noted for his skill in all diseases of animals. Whatever
this man did, the dog recovered; and they who heard her thanks,
intermingled with blessings (that were rather promises of good
fortune than prayers), looked grave at his good luck when, next year,
his ewes twinned, and his meadow-grass was heavy and thick.

Now it so happened that, about the year seventeen hundred and eleven,
one of the guardians of the young squire, a certain Sir Philip
Tempest, bethought him of the good shooting there must be on his
ward's property; and in consequence he brought down four or five
gentlemen, of his friends, to stay for a week or two at the Hall.
From all accounts, they roystered and spent pretty freely. I never
heard any of their names but one, and that was Squire Gisborne's. He
was hardly a middle-aged man then; he had been much abroad, and
there, I believe, he had known Sir Philip Tempest, and done him some
service. He was a daring and dissolute fellow in those days:
careless and fearless, and one who would rather be in a quarrel than
out of it. He had his fits of ill-temper besides, when he would