was so tremendously shaken by the earthquake of 1755 that the owner
dared no longer reside in it; and practically acknowledging that its
ambitious site rendered it indeed a Folly, he proceeded to locate it on
--humbler ground. The great house actually took up its march along the
declining ridge of the bill, and came safely to the bottom, where it
stood till within the memory of men now alive.

The proprietor, meanwhile, had adhered to the Royalist side, and fled to
England during the Revolution. The mansion was left under the care of
Richard Derby (an ancestor of the present Derby family), who had a claim
to the Browne property through his wife, but seems to have held the
premises precisely as the refugee left them, for a long term of years,
in the expectation of his eventual return. The house remained, with all
its furniture in its spacious rooms and chambers, ready for the exile's
occupancy, as soon as he should reappear. As time went on, however, it
began to be neglected, and was accessible to whatever vagrant, or idle
school-boy, or berrying party might choose to enter through its ill-
secured windows.

But there was one closet in the house, which everybody was afraid to
enter, it being supposed that an evil spirit--perhaps a domestic Demon
of the Browne family--was confined in it. One day, three or four score
years ago, some school-boys happened to be playing in the deserted
chambers, and took it into their heads to develop the secrets of this
mysterious closet. With great difficulty and tremor they succeeded in
forcing the door. As it flew open, there was a vision of people in
garments of antique magnificence,--gentlemen in curled wigs and
tarnished gold-lace, and ladies in brocade and quaint head-dresses,
rushing tumultuously forth and tumbling upon the floor. The urchins
took to their heels, in huge dismay, but crept back, after a while, and