“Your disconsolate

Bessy

[15]

MRS. MONTRESOR TO MRS. DE WYNT.

“32, —— Street, May Fair, “May 27th.   

Street, May Fair

“Oh, my dearest Bessy, how I wish we were out of this dreadful, dreadful house! Please don’t think me very ungrateful for saying this, after your taking such pains to provide us with a Heaven upon earth, as you thought.

Oh

“What has happened could, of course, have been neither foretold, nor guarded against, by any human being. About ten days ago, Benson (my maid) came to me with a very long face, and said, ‘If you please, ’m, did you know that this house was haunted?’ I was so startled: you know what a coward I am. I[16] said, ‘Good Heavens! No! is it?’ ‘Well, ’m, I’m pretty nigh sure it is,’ she said, and the expression of her countenance was about as lively as an undertaker’s; and then she told me that cook had been that morning to order in groceries from a shop in the neighbourhood, and on her giving the man the direction where to send the things to, he had said, with a very peculiar smile, ‘No. 32, —— Street, eh? h’m? I wonder how long you’ll stand it; last lot held out just a fortnight.’ He looked so odd that she asked him what he meant, but he only said, ‘Oh! nothing; only that parties never did stay long at 32. He had known parties go in one day, and out the next, and during the last four years he had never known any remain over the month.’ Feeling a good deal alarmed by this information, she naturally inquired the reason; but he declined to give it, saying that if she had not found it out for herself, she had much[17] better leave it alone, as it would only frighten her out of her wits; and on her insisting and urging him, she could only extract from him, that the house had such a villanously bad name, that the owners were glad to let it for a mere song. You know how firmly I believe in apparitions, and what an unutterable fear I have of them; anything material, tangible, that I can lay hold of—anything of the same fibre, blood, and bone as myself, I could, I think, confront bravely enough; but the 

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