Carmilla

re

and anxiety had taken the place of that cordial serenity which used to characterize his features. His dark blue eyes, always penetrating, now gleamed with a sterner lig

n the death of his beloved niece and ward; and he then broke out in a tone of intense bitterness and fury, inveighing against the "hellish arts" to which she had fal

en, asked him, if not too painful to him, to detail the circumstances w

leasure," said the General, "

ld I not?

ut what consists with your own prejudices and illusions.

er; "I am not such a d

quire proof for what you believe, and am, therefore,

have experienced is marvelous--and I have been forced by extraordinary evidence to credit that which r

s penetration, I saw my father, at this point, glance at the

king gloomily and curiously into the glades and

now I was going to ask you to bring me there to inspect them. I have a special object in expl

aid my father. "I hope you are thinki

the smile, which courtesy exacts for a friend's joke; on the contrary, he looked

ous sacrilege here, which will relieve our earth of certain monsters, and enable honest people to sleep in their beds without being assai

e not with a glance of suspicion--with an e

ally descended from the Karnsteins. But the name and title have long ceased to exist. The castle is a ruin;

I had better relate everything in the order in which it occurred," said the General. "You saw my dear ward--my

ovely," said my father. "I was grieved and shocked more than I

kind pressure. Tears gathered in the old soldier'

ction that cheered my home and made my life happy. That is all gone. The years that remain to me on earth may not be very long; but by God's mercy I hope to accompl

hing as it occurred," said my father. "Pray do; I assu

runstall road, by which the General had come, diverg

s?" inquired the General,

father. "Pray let us hear the sto