-faced bonne opened the door to admit me,
I should have thought such a one little in harmony with her dwelling; but when I
found myself confronted by a very old woman, wearing a very antique peasant
costume, a cap alike hideous and costly, with long flaps of native lace, a
petticoat and jacket of cloth, and sabots more like little boats than shoes, it
seemed all right, and soothingly in character.
    The expression of her face was not quite so soothing as the cut of her
costume; anything more cantankerous I have seldom seen; she would scarcely reply
to my inquiry after Madame Walravens; I believe she would have snatched the
basket of fruit from my hand, had not the old priest, hobbling up, checked her,
and himself lent an ear to the message with which I was charged.
    His apparent deafness rendered it a little difficult to make him fully
understand that I must see Madame Walravens, and consign the fruit into her own
hands. At last, however, he comprehended the fact that such were my orders, and
that duty enjoined their literal fulfilment. Addressing the aged bonne, not in
French, but in the aboriginal tongue of Labassecour, he persuaded her, at last,
to let me cross the inhospitable threshold, and himself escorting me up-stairs,
I was ushered into a sort of salon, and there left.
    The room was large, and had a fine old ceiling, and almost church-like
windows of coloured glass; but it was desolate, and in the shadow of the coming
storm, looked strangely lowering. Within - opened a smaller room; there,
however, the blind of the single casement was closed; through the deep gloom few
details of furniture were apparent. These few I amused myself by puzzling to
make out; and, in particular, I was attracted by the outline of a picture on the
wall.
    By-and-bye the picture seemed to give way: to my bewilderment, it shook, it
sunk, it rolled back into nothing; its vanishing left an opening arched, leading
into an arched passage, with a mystic winding stair; both passage and stair were
of cold stone, uncarpeted and unpainted. Down this donjon stair descended a tap,
tap, like a stick; soon, there fell on the steps a shadow, and last of all, I
was aware of a substance.
    Yet, was it actual substance, this appearance approaching me? this
obstruction, partially darkening the arch?
    It drew near, and I saw it well. I began to comprehend where I was. Well
might