of one that had settled to slumber for many hours. The cold moonlight
streamed in at the window on the landing as I ascended the broad
staircase; and I paused for a moment to look over the wooded grounds to
the turreted chateau, to me, so full of interest. I bethought me,
however, that prying eyes might read a meaning in this midnight gazing,
and possibly the Count himself might, in his jealous mood, surmise a
signal in this unwonted light in the stair-window of the Dragon Volant.

On opening my room door, with a little start, I met an extremely old
woman with the longest face I ever saw; she had what used to be termed a
high-cauld-cap on, the white border of which contrasted with her brown
and yellow skin, and made her wrinkled face more ugly. She raised her
curved shoulders, and looked up in my face, with eyes unnaturally black
and bright.

"I have lighted a little wood, Monsieur, because the night is chill."

I thanked her, but she did not go. She stood with her candle in her
tremulous fingers.

"Excuse an old woman, Monsieur," she said; "but what on earth can a
young English _milord_, with all Paris at his feet, find to amuse
him in the Dragon Volant?"

Had I been at the age of fairy tales, and in daily intercourse with the
delightful Countess d'Aulnois, I should have seen in this withered
apparition, the _genius loci_, the malignant fairy, at the stamp of
whose foot the ill-fated tenants of this very room had, from time to
time, vanished. I was past that, however; but the old woman's dark eyes
were fixed on mine with a steady meaning that plainly told me that my