My cheeks tingled, and for the first time raising my eyes I found myself face to face with the haughty belle.  She was very tall and queenlike in her figure, and though she could hardly be called handsome, there was about her an air of elegance and refinement which partially compensated for the absence of beauty.  That she was proud one could see from the glance of her large black eyes and the curl of her lip.  Coolly surveying me for a moment, as she would any other curious specimen, she resumed her book, never speaking to me again, except to ask, when she saw me gazing wonderingly around the splendidly-furnished room, “if I supposed I could remember every article of furniture, and give a faithful report.”

I thought I was insulted when she called me “little friend,” and now, feeling sure of it, I tartly replied that “if I couldn’t she perhaps might lend me paper and pencil, with which to write them down.”

“Orginally, truly,” said she, again poring over her book.

Nellie, who had left me for a moment, now returned, bidding me come and see her mother, and passing through the long hall, I was soon in Mrs. Gilbert’s room, which was as tastefully, though perhaps not quite so richly, furnished as the parlor.  Mrs. Gilbert was lying upon a sofa, and the moment I looked upon her the love which I had so freely given the daughter was shared with the mother, in whose pale sweet face, and soft brown eyes, I saw a strong resemblance to Nellie.  She was attired in a rose-colored morning-gown, which flowed open in front, disclosing to view a larger quantity of rich French embroidery than I had ever before seen.

Many times during the day, and many times since, have I wondered what made her marry, and if she really loved the bearish-looking man who occasionally stalked into the room, smoking cigars and talking very loudly, when he knew how her head was throbbing with pain.

I had eaten but little breakfast that morning, and verily I thought I should famish before their dinner hour arrived; and when at last it came, and I saw the table glittering with silver, I felt many misgivings as to my ability to acquit myself creditably.  But by dint of watching Nellie, doing just what she did, and refusing just what she refused, I managed to get through with it tolerably well.  For once, too, in my life I drank all the wine I wanted; the result of which was that long before sunset I went home, crying and vomiting with the sick headache, which Sally said “served me right;” at the same time hinting her belief that I was slightly intoxicated!

CHAPTER III.

THE HAUNTED HOUSE.

Down our long, green lane, and at the further extremity of the narrow footpath which led to the “old mine,” was another path or wagon road which wound along among the fern bushes, under the chestnut trees, across the hemlock swamp, and up, to a grassy ridge which overlooked a small pond, said, of course, to have no bottom.  Fully crediting this story, and knowing, moreover, that China was opposite to us, I have often taken down my atlas and hunted through that ancient empire, in hopes of finding a corresponding sheet of water.  Failing to do so I had made one with my pencil, writing against it, “Cranberry Pond,” that being the name of its American brother.