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her to continue her relation; but there was another previous hint, which Caroline thought it necessary to give to her aunt, although it pained her to do so—she consequently proceeded, with some little degree of hesitation, as she felt conscious that she was criminating a father in the eye of the person to whom she spoke, and the recollection was bitter, indeed, to her feelings.

"I have already observed that my father was too much attached to the allurements of the gay world; that is, in short, he was what the world, by a too favourable denomination, termed a man of gallantry; but meaning in its literal acceptation, a libertine. Alas! gallantry was not his only vice; for he was addicted to the love of gaming, a fatal propensity still more ruinous to his family. My heart bleeds whilst I thus expose the failings of a parent; but to you, madame, I will, since I ought, speak only truths."

"You are equally amiable in this, as in all other respects," said the baroness. "I should admire you less than I now do could you speak even of an undeserving father, without regretting the necessity which obliges you to do so. Believe me, Caroline, though to you I scarcely need make the observation, there is no duty more positive, no virtue more brilliant in the eyes of the world, or which better rewards the performance, as it delights our feelings, than filial piety."

Caroline again pursued her narration:—"My father on his return had renewed his intimacy with Count Durlack, and the count, his custom of visiting at our house, to which he shortly added the resumption of his

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former insolence. He had mentioned nothing of his having been refused admittance to my father, judging, by his silence on the subject, that my mother had not made him acquainted with the affair; and this forbearance of her’s, instead of producing remorse and gratitude, led him on to such audacity of conduct, that my mother was compelled to seek protection from his insults, by making my father acquainted with his former and present behaviour. This account necessarily included whatever had taken place during his absence at Buda; but as my mother was ignorant of the count’s having any share in the events of the mysterious night, and as she wished the remembrance of it to be buried in oblivion, she unfortunately avoided the mention of it. Alas! to this fatal concealment, this too delicate excess of solicitude, to spare unnecessary pain to the bosom she loved, may, perhaps, be attributed our subsequent misery and misfortunes."

" ‘And pray, madam,’ asked my father, when she had ended, ‘why was I not informed of this before?’

" ‘My regard for your life, my beloved husband,’ said she, ‘induced me to suppress a circumstance which might endanger it, and, I beseech you, suffer not your resentment to lead you into danger. You have only to withdraw yourself from the intimacy of Count Durlack by degrees, and then——’

" ‘You regard my honour, then, less than my life,’ interrupted my father, ‘which I would pardon in no one, and least of all in a wife. Since, however, you dread the peril to which I may be exposed, why do you now inform me?’

" ‘Is this what I expected from you, my Mecklenburg?’ exclaimed my mother, ‘from you who know the idolatry of my heart towards you; and that, whilst a wife and mother can repel audacity, she will screen from danger the dear object of her fondest affection?’

" ‘I again ask you, madam, why I am now informed of what before I was kept ignorant?’ said my father, more sternly.

"My mother wept.

" ‘Can I possibly,’ said she, when her tears would permit her to speak, ‘remain silent longer, when the count, presuming on your friendship, takes the liberty of again visiting here, and persecutes me with behaviour, which is so totally inconsistent with propriety or modesty, and to which he may have the presumption to suppose you are wilfully blind?’

"When it was too late to recall it, she perceived the improper severity of this speech.

" ‘It is well, madam,’ said my father, ‘you think, perhaps, for you have the temerity to insinuate that I wilfully behold my own dishonour. A short adieu. I shall, you may depend upon if, investigate this matter thoroughly.’

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CHAPTER V.

AIKIN.

As Caroline pronounced the words which concluded the last chapter, Roland and Namine entered with dinner. The baron soon followed; but he was not the same baron who had left them after breakfast. His bebaviour was entirely changed. Abstracted and reserved, he maintained a gloomy silence, and neglected even those offices of politeness which custom has rendered indispensible. The baroness, although fearful of offending him, ventured to enquire if he was unwell. He replied in the negative, and at the same time desired, in no very gentle accents, that she would desist from making her observations upon him. All conversation was, of course, banished; and after a very silent and uncomfortable meal, they arose from table. The baron left the room immediately, and the baroness pleaded her excuse for withdrawing also, complaining of a pain in her head. Thus was Caroline left alone, and not a little perplexed at what she had observed in the baron. The mystery, however, appeared so incomprehensible to her, that she ventured not into the boundless fields of conjecture; but determining to amuse herself either at her drawing, or with a book, she retired to her own chamber. The window faced the west; and the sun, though beginning to decline, shone on them with a lustre unusual at that season. The air was, nevertheless, chilling; but Caroline, in defiance of it, sat down at one of them with one of Cornelle’s tragedies; she was weeping over the distress of the unfortunate sister of the Roman champion, and her soul was filled with that soft languor which renders it liable to receive gloomy impressions, when her attention was called off by some voices on the terrace below. She looked out, and beheld the baron in deep conversation with Roland. He spoke in an elevated tone of voice, and with great earnestness, said,

"Roland, are you sure that you were not in the vaults of the castle to-day?"

"Truly, my lord baron," answered Roland, "I have not been there these two days."

"I know not how to believe you," said the baron, "and yet I know not why you should otherwise deceive me. You certainly shrunk from my sight, if it was you, and that you should do so is very extraordinary. I saw there distinctly the figure of a man. He seemed, indeed, rather stouter than you, and I am convinced it was no deception, no illusion of fancy."

"It is very strange," said Roland.

"It is so," replied the baron. "I am sure it was not Fransisco, for at that very moment he was busily employed in a distant part of the garden."

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"It is worth while to ask him, however my lord," said Roland.

"You are right," replied the baron. "Call him instantly."

Roland went away, and the baron in the meantime paced the terrace in visible perturbation. Caroline’s curiosity induced her to remain stationary, that she might hear the result of this extraordinary enquiry, and as one side of the window shutter bad been closed to prevent too great a current of air, she escaped observation. This, thought she, whatever it may be, is certainly the cause of the baron’s abstraction at dinner. How weak, and, indeed, faulty must the mind be, which can be disordered by such trifles . Francisco and Roland at length approached.

"Francisco," asked the baron, in a peremptory tone, "what were you doing to-day in the private passages under the castle?"

"Me, my lord baron?"

"Yes, sir, you."

"Lord help me," said Francisco, "I have not been there for more than a month, and then Roland went with me to fetch the old box to plant the shrub in near the arbour. I would not go there alone for worlds, my lord baron."

"I say I saw you there this morning," passionately exclaimed the baron.

"Then I shall die soon, my lord baron, without doubt," replied Francisco; "for if you did, it was certainly my spirit."

"Your spirit? silly fellow," answered the baron, with contempt.

"What else could it be, my lord baron? You know the castle is haunted; and, as I said before, I would not go there alone for all the world—no, not for ten thousand worlds! And besides——"

"Hold, sir!" interrupted the baron. "I am unwilling to believe you wish to impose on me, yet you, or Roland, it must have been; for who else has access to this castle?"

"Why, my lord baron, if it was not Roland, I am sure it was not me; and, therefore, it must have been a spirit. There are enough of them in the castle. No longer than last Friday night one broke open my room door, and tweaked me by the nose, so hard as to awake me."

"Irritate me not with your folly," angrily interrupted the baron, as he turned abruptly from them, and disappeared through a gate leading from the terrace.

Although Caroline was somewhat diverted with the simplicity of the gardener, yet when he and Roland had quitted the terrace, and left her to her own contemplation, she could not dismiss the idea of the apparition the baron had seen, until, by degrees, a kind of apprehension infected her mind. She was ready to attribute the fears of Namine and Francisco to their ignorance or simplicity; but the baron was a man of very different cast--one who would have despised even his own folly, in believing in such an appearance, had he not been convinced that it was certainly true.

When passions cloud the mind, it is surprising by what insensible, though quick degrees, they obtain increased dominion. Fear is not the

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most backward of these encroachers. It is, in fact, a disease of the mind, which, if not immediately opposed and subdued, becomes almost incurable.

Whilst Caroline was musing, the sun sunk beneath the horizon, and the air became chilling and cold. "However," said she, as she closed the window, "Francisco and Namine must have some foundation for their fears, as they never could have imbibed them without a cause." She now cast a timid glance around the apartment. The stern countenances of the warriors, represented in the whole-length portraits before mentioned, frowned upon her. She trembled; and a sudden faintness overcoming her, she leaned against the frame of one of them for support. She was soon better; but the pressure of her arm occasioned one of the rusty nails which supported a corner of the painting to give way, and the frame swinging round, now suspended only by the other, discovered to her view what it had been intended to conceal, a panel in the wainscot, about three feet square, carved somewhat different to the rest. She began to examine it, but she had scarcely laid her hand upon it before it fell down, and rested in a vacancy in the wainscoting, made purposely for its reception below. Caroline started back some paces in amazement, if not affright; but, at length, recovering courage, she put her head through the opening, and perceived a flight of steps descending in the wall of her apartment, and after a short turn, ascending upwards. It was too dark to see further into this recess, for by this time the shades of evening began to obscure every distant object. Caroline’s soul corresponded with the gloom; and possessed with a thousand fears, she reflected on the apparent communication her chamber must have with other parts of the building; and as her now-terrified imagination represented as undoubted blood, the spots she beheld on the floor, immediately below the opening. Far from attempting to proceed, her difficulty was now to withdraw without exciting suspicion of the discovery she had made; for she sickened, and the roses faded from her cheeks, as she heard a noise, which she believed to be in her chamber, though it proceeded only from her own heart. Thus alarmed, her first impulse led her to rush to the family, but she was checked by an irresistible propensity to learn more of this mysterious communication; and after reasoning with herself for a few moments, she resolved to keep the discovery she had made a secret, until she had investigated the termination of the staircase. No evil, not even a noise, had yet disturbed her; and something might be connected with the knowledge of this concealed passage, which might eventually lead her to regret a too hasty disclosure of it. Having regained a chair, she sat some moments debating on the propriety of adhering to this resolution; and finding that her courage re-assumed its empire in her mind, she rose, and essayed to raise the panel the frame, from which it had sunk, but in vain. It remained as firmly fixed as though it had been placed by the hand of fate. To replace the picture in its former situation, and thereby preclude either observation or

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enquiry, was a matter of little less difficulty. To climb to the top of the room, and fasten the nail, was impracticable. But, at length, by drawing a table close to the picture, and placing a chair thereon, she contrived, with the assistance of some strong packthread, to support the painting, so that no alteration in its position could be obvious, unless to far more scrutinizing eyes than those of Namine. This accomplished, she proceeded with tolerable composure to the sitting-room, which was empty, excepting that Roland was making up the fire. But the baroness almost immediately, and the baron soon, afterwards came in. There was a paucity of conversation; that sweet cordial which, among congenial souls, will make the gloom of a winter’s evening lively and delightful. The baroness was unwell and dispirited, and the baron and Caroline were self-occupied. The thoughts of the one dwelling on the unaccountable figure he had seen, and the other on the private passage she had discovered from her apartment. Her thoughts were also employed in reflecting how different her conduct would have been, could she have felt that respect for the baron which inspires confidence. This, however, his manners forbade; and the mystery in which he seemed enveloped, inspired a curiosity, which even the latent sensations of fear could not subdue, and which she, in fact, found to be wholly irrepressible. The hour for rest was anticipated with pleasure by all the party, except Caroline, who, although attended by Namine, felt her firmness forsake her as she entered her apartment. Rallying her spirits, however, she determined to let Namine’s voluble tongue have its full play; but as she had once before checked her too severely for her to begin without some encouragement, she was under the necessity of removing this restraint which she had imposed upon her.

"Namine," said she, "who was it the baron saw to-day, in the dark passages under the castle?"

"Why, ma’amselle, you may laugh at Francisco, for, really, as a body may say, the ghost must have little to do to go about pulling people’s noses, without, indeed, it has a regard for Francisco’s, and wants to make his a little longer; for you know, ma’amselle, it is a very short one. But I myself saw it last night on the terrace, though it did not approach me, or give me any pinches. It was all in white, and moved about very fast—sometimes it sat on the parapet—sometimes it would rise from the ground, and fly over so far, and then, ma’amselle, I am sure it must be a spirit from that—it made itself bigger or less. It even went through the iron gratings to the vaults below, and was the same, I dare say, which my lord, the baron, saw there to-day."

"I saw," said Caroline, laughing very heartily, "that white object on the terrace last night, as well as you, Namine; and I can assure you it was nothing but your lady’s beautiful Persian cat."

"Cat!" said Namine, emphatically. "Do you imagine, ma’amselle, that a cat could turn itself into a spirit, or that the baron does not know the ghost of a man from a cat? As well might you say, ma’amselle, (for

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Namine’s tongue was now set a going, though she prudently lowered her voice,) that it is not the spirit of the fine young gentleman he killed; for, to a certainty, it is that which makes him take on so much as he does about it."

"What do you tell me, Namine? Is it possible that a man has been murdered within these walls?"

"Ay, that there has, ma’amselle," returned Namine, whispering. "And more than that, many a dark deed I say has been committed within these gloomy walls. But that is not to the purpose. The man I speak of was killed by my lord, the baron, and, as I have heard, in some of these rooms. Mercy on us," continued she, trembling, "who knows but that it might have been in this very room?"

"Namine," said Caroline trembling, "who told you this?"

"My mother, ma’amselle. You must know she was the favourite servant of the late baroness, and lived with her till she was poisoned," again whispering very softly in Caroline’s ear.

"Until who was poisoned?" questioned Caroline, with indescribable horror.

"The baron’s first lady. It was in her time the gentleman was killed. The baron did it with his own hand, and that made the spirit appear to-day?"

"Why did the baron kill him?"

"I don’t know, ma’amselle. I have asked my mother over and over again, but she bid me go for a giddy girl, not fit to be trusted with secrets. And what I now tell you, I overheard her tell my father one night, and I dare say she would tell the whole to you if you could contrive——"

Caroline interrupted her; although the benevolence of her heart ever led her o treat her inferiors with indulgence, yet she had too much inherent dignity of mind to permit them to familiarize with her.

"Contrive!" said she, "Namine; I shall contrive nothing to possess myself of secrets which I have no right to enquire into."

"Indeed, ma’amselle," replied Namine, "if you would but be persuaded——" At this instant her lady’s bell rang.

"Go, Namine," interrupted Caroline. "Do you not hear that you are summoned by the baroness?"

"Oh! dear ma’amselle, what shall I do? —I dare not go alone."

"How are you used to go about?"

"Ah! but ma’amselle, consider——"

But Caroline, compassionating the weakness of a superstitious mind, and regardless of herself, where real terror was so apparent, she said, smilingly,

"Well, Namine, I will guard you, at least, from the precincts of this chamber, and then I hope you will be out of the reach of all the ghosts."

"Thank you, ma’amselle—thank you," said Namine. "You are very good, and, I dare say, no spirits will ever injure you."

Caroline conducted her along the corridor, but had scarcely regained her

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own apartment, when a loud shriek resounded through the castle. The noise was scarcely human. "Heavens!" exclaimed she, "what can be the matter?" She rushed back along the corridor, and met the baron, who, alarmed by the noise, pressed hastily forward. They proceeded together to the staircase, from whence the sound, though now changed to deep groans, seemed to ascend. Some little way down lay Namine, in convulsive fits; from which, however, she soon recovered, when she heard the soothing voice of Caroline.

"What is the matter with you?" angrily asked the baron.

"Oh! my lord baron," replied Namine, "I have been so frightened! I was hastening to obey my lady’s bell, when, all at once, I heard something come rustling behind me, and then I felt it burning, and so, my lord baron, I was frightened to death, and so I fell down upon the stairs."

"Had you not a light?"

"Yes, my lord baron."

"Senseless wretch!" muttered the baron, with a curse, as he turned from her to regain his own apartment, without paying the least attention to Caroline. She, however, stayed with the poor terrified girl until she was sufficiently recovered to reach her lady’s room, and then returned with much self-accusation to her chamber; for she could not but think herself blameable for having engaged the simple Namine in a conversation which had thus disturbed her intellects. She resolved to do so no more, and at the same time could not but remark that the incident afforded a useful lesson to herself, and warned her not to indulge in future in ideas similar to those which this day had so much engrossed her thoughts. "I have read," said she, "that in all antique castles like this, there are private stairs and trap-doors formed for concealment. This must be of the same kind, and ought not to give me any uneasiness." She now addressed a prayer to that Being who governs and upholds the world. She offered up a heart, pure as the mountain snow, and then retiring to her bed, she enjoyed that tranquil repose which health and innocence alone can give.

The next morning Namine’s fright gave some amusement to the Baroness and Caroline, and they began to rally her in the charitable hope of curing her of such dismal apprehensions. But the baron interrupted them, and desired they would not molest him with such trifling conversation. Caroline was amazed. She observed the silence which was imposed upon her, but wondered that a man of sense, as she supposed the baron to be, did not pass over the matter in the same way she and the baroness had done. The baron would, perhaps, have done so, had he not been advised by a troublesome monitor—that of nature, or nature’s God, who permitted the souls of the departed to wander, and to harrass the wicked, revelling in ill-obtained prosperity, he had subjected his castle and himself to such a visitation. A sense of guilt destroys all enjoyment, and causes the wretch subject to its influence here on earth