I guess your pleasure would abate.  ’Tis well for you, young lady, peradventure, ye see not with my eyes”—­and at the moment, sure enough, her eyes, which were small, grey, and in no way remarkable, twinkled with a light so severe that the effect was unpleasant in the extreme. “’Tis well for you and them,” she continued, “that ye cannot count the cost.  Time was when hospitality could be kept in England, and the guest not ruin the master of the feast—­but that’s all vanished now:  pride and poverty—­pride and poverty, young lady, are an ill-matched pair, Heaven kens!” My tongue, which had at first almost faltered in its office, now found utterance.  By a kind of instinct, I addressed my strange visitant in her own manner and humour.  “And are we, then, so much poorer than in days of yore?” were the words that I spoke.  My visitor seemed half startled at the sound of my voice, as at something unaccustomed, and went on, rather answering my question by implication than directly:  “’Twas not all hollowness then,” she exclaimed, ceasing somewhat her hollow whisper; “the land was then the lord’s, and that which seemed, was.  The child, young lady, was not then mortgaged in the cradle, and, mark ye, the bride, when she kneeled at the altar, gave not herself up, body and soul, to be the bondswoman of the Jew, but to be the helpmate of the spouse.”  “The Jew!” I exclaimed in surprise, for then I understood not the allusion.  “Ay, young lady! the Jew,” was the rejoinder. “’Tis plain ye know not who rules.  ’Tis all hollow yonder! all hollow, all hollow! to the very glitter of the side-board, all false! all false! all hollow!  Away with such make-believe finery!” And here again the hollow voice rose a little, and the dim grey eye glistened.  “Ye mortgage the very oaks of your ancestors—­I saw the planting of them; and now ’tis all painting, gilding, varnishing and veneering.  Houses call ye them?  Whited sepulchres, young lady, whited sepulchres.  Trust not all that seems to glisten.  Fair though it seems, ’tis but the product of disease—­even as is the pearl in your hair, young lady, that glitters in the mirror yonder,—­not more specious than is all,—­ay, all ye have seen to-night.”

As my strange visitor pronounced these words, I instinctively turned my gaze to a large old-fashioned mirror that leaned from the wall of the chamber.  ’Twas but for a moment.  But when I again turned my head, my visitant was no longer there!  I heard plainly, as I turned, the distinct rustle of the silk, as if she had risen and was leaving the room.  I seemed distinctly to hear this, together with the quick, short, easy footstep with which females of rank of that period were taught to glide rather than to walk; this I seemed to hear, but of what appeared the antique old lady I saw no more.  The suddenness and strangeness of this event for a moment sent the blood back to my heart.  Could I have found voice, I should, I think, have screamed, but that was, for a moment, beyond my power.  A few seconds recovered me.  By a sort of impulse I rushed to the door, outside which I now heard the footsteps of some of the family, when, to my utter astonishment, I found it was—­locked!  I now recollected that I myself locked it before sitting down.