torch glittered on the embroidery of her dress, and gleamed on the
pillars of the porch. After a momentary pause--a glance backwards--
and then a desperate effort--she went in. The decipherer of the coat
of arms had ventured up the lowest step, and shrinking back
immediately, pale and tremulous, affirmed that the torch was held by
the very image of old Caesar.

"But, such a hideous grin," added he, "was never seen on the face of
mortal man, black or white! It will haunt me till my dying day."

Meantime, the coach had wheeled round, with a prodigious clatter on
the pavement, and rumbled up the street, disappearing in the twilight,
while the ear still tracked its course. Scarcely was it gone, when
the people began to question whether the coach and attendants, the
ancient lady, the spectre of old Caesar, and the Old Maid herself,
were not all a strangely combined delusion, with some dark purport in
its mystery. The whole town was astir, so that, instead of
dispersing, the crowd continually increased, and stood gazing up at
the windows of the mansion, now silvered by the brightening moon. The
elders, glad to indulge the narrative propensity of age, told of the
long-faded splendor of the family, the entertainments they had given,
and the guests, the greatest of the land, and even titled and noble
ones from abroad, who had passed beneath that portal. These graphic
reminiscences seemed to call up the ghosts of those to whom they
referred. So strong was the impression, on some of the more
imaginative hearers, that two or three were seized with trembling
fits, at one and the same moment, protesting that they had distinctly
heard three other raps of the iron knocker.

"Impossible!" exclaimed others. "See! The moon shines beneath the