"Turn into the old paper-mill road. I wish to call on a sick friend there before going home. Go on. I will keep a lookout and stop you when we get near the house."
The coachman touched his hat, remounted, and turned his horses' heads to the required direction.
Mary Grey sat close on the left-hand side of the cushion, and drew the curtain away, so that she could look through the window and watch their course.
The night was clear, starlit and breezy after the hot September day.
It was still early, and the sidewalks were enlivened by young people sauntering in front of their own houses to enjoy the refreshing evening air, while the porches and door-steps were occupied by the elders taking their ease in their own way.
But in the next mile the scene began to change, and instead of the populous street, with its long rows of houses and the cheerful sidewalks, there was a lonely road with detached dwellings and occasional groups of people. In the second mile the scene changed again, and there was an old turnpike, with here and there a solitary road-side dwelling, with perhaps a man leaning over the front gate smoking his pipe, or a pair of lovers billing and cooing under the starlit sky.
Mary Grey kept a bright lookout for the "haunted house," and presently she recognized it, and saw a light shining through the little front window under the vine-covered porch.
"He is there, poor wretch, sure enough, waiting for me. I feel a little sorry for him, because he loves me so devotedly. But heigho! If I do not spare myself, shall I spare him? No!" said Mary Grey to herself, as she ordered the coachman to draw up.
He stopped and jumped off his box, and came and opened the carriage door. But it was the door on the other side of the carriage, opposite the middle of the road, and not opposite the house, where she wanted to get out.
"Open the other door," she said.