“Well, except that these chambers are drier and cleaner, they have not much to boast of beyond the rooms below. The whole house is awful gloomy. One does not need to see a ghost here. One feels that it is haunted,” said Gloria, shuddering, as she completed her inspection of the upper rooms.
“Yes, honey, even in the daytime, with the blessed sun shining in at all the open windows, and people going up and down. Then just think what it must have been at night with no one but my lone self up here and an old colored man and woman in the kitchen down stairs—after what I had seen and heard, too,” muttered the old lady, turning pale.
“You? Is it possible, Mrs. Brent, that there can be any foundation for these absurd stories circulated amongst the superstitious colored people, and that you yourself have had any cause to credit them?” inquired Gloria, in great surprise.
“Now see here, honey, I put it to yourself. What did you say yourself, just now? ‘One feels that it is haunted.’”
“Oh, yes, by the memory of all the stories of mad orgies and atrocious deeds that we have heard of the furious old Gryphyns who used to live here, and—the curse that fell upon them. The air is full of maledictions! Haunted by these, Mrs. Brent. Spirits terrible enough to daunt the bravest, yet not visible ghosts,” said the young lady.
“That which I saw and heard, I saw and heard,” solemnly answered the housekeeper, sinking down in an old, green chintz covered arm-chair on one side of the fire that had been kindled in one of the bedrooms.
“What was it, Mrs. Brent?” inquired Gloria, her curiosity getting the better of her discretion, as she drew a chair to the side of the old lady and seated herself.
“It was that which drove me out of this large, once comfortable and convenient house, to take refuge in that rough, deserted porter’s lodge, at the gate, and has prevented me from ever coming back here except in broad daylight, and with plenty of people to keep me company.”
“But what was it, then, Mrs. Brent?”
“Nor was that the only time I saw and heard what was not of this world! No, nor of heaven either! Nor am I the only one who has seen and heard things about this place enough to raise the hair and curdle the blood of the boldest man in the country.”