The House of a Thousand Candles

house held a screaming demon. We were now well-launched upon December, and I was growing used to my surroundings. I had offered myself frequently as a target by land and wate

ostilities. Twice I had seen the red tam-o'-shanter far through the wood, and once I had passed my young acquaintance with another girl, a dark, laughing youngster, walk

nce and loving care. It occurred to me that some memorial, a tablet attached to the outer wall, or perhaps, more properly placed in the chapel, would be fitting; and I expe

8

John Marsh

imony to t

forbearance

iful thin

bler than h

n (who serv

this

9

f cardboard and was studying them cr

es, sir," said Bates from the wi

at lazy flakes of it were c

conducted himself as a model servant. The man-of-all-work at St. Agatha's, a Scotchman named Ferguson, had visited h

at the school, sir," sa

es running a li

ll, sir. Ferguson t

occasionally entertained the idea that he would some day brain me as I sat dining upon the viands which he prepared with so much skill; or perhaps he woul

d, and glancing with something akin to terror upon the open pages of a d

able, sir; but they hope to

d; I'm glad

being neighbors. And Ferguson says that Miss De

ack-he was trying to stop the rattle which

ux!" I laugh

sir,-rather odd,

but not referring to the name. My mind was busy w

l estate, and become, without reservation, and without necessity for any process of l

eresa were abroad at the time he died. It was my sorrowful dut

Sister Theresa and her niece were doubtless calmly awaiting my failure to remain at Glenarm House during the disciplinary year,-Sister Theresa, a Protestant nun, and the niece wh

se, she would naturally look upon me as a blackguard and a menace to the peace of the neighborhood. I had, therefore, kept rigidly to my own side

at

the door with his cha

ld shoot me, or if I should tumble into the l

m mine to the window and

Mr. Gl

get this property and everything

rstanding of th

e twice since I came here. He fired at me t

s hands opened and shut several times, and a

and you may repeat it to your school-teachers and to Mr. Pickering, who pays you, and to Morgan, whom somebody has hired to kill me,-that I'm going to keep faith with my dead grandfather, and that when I've spent my year here and done what that old man wished me to do, I'll give them this house and every acre of ground and every damned dollar the estate car

assion and fairly roared my challe

nderstand you, sir.

be afraid. You've probably heard that I'm a bad lot and a worthless adventurer; but you can tell Sister Theresa

orm boots! To find him thus humbly devoted to my service after the raking I had given him dulled the edge of my anger. I went back to the library and planned a cathedral in seven styles of architecture, all unrelated and impossible, and when this began to bore me I designed a crypt in which the wicked should be buried stand

out for a tramp. Winter had indeed come and possessed the earth, and it had given me a new la

ail. A few moments later I picked up an overshoe, evidently lost in the chase by one of Sister Theresa's girls, I reflected. I remembered that while a

am sure, a shrewd humor peculiar to themselves. I rather envied the school-girl who had ventured forth for a run i

ou tread,

light foot

glistening

ep it signs

f the girl and the rabbit. Near the lake they parted company, the rabbit leading off at a tang

d from the day I saw her first from the wall. Her back was toward me as I drew near; her hands were thrust into her pockets. She was evidently enjoying the soft mingling of the snow with the still, blue waters of the lake, and a girl and a snow-s

ershoe in the other. She drew back a trifle, j

all and it was a thoroughly underbred trick-my twitting you about

hat shoe?" she said with

n of man, I supposed, as a r

ly! Won't yo

k you

the putting on of a girl's overshoes. She took the damp bit of rubber-a wet overshoe, even if small and hallowed by associations, isn't pretty-as V

o anything about it; but I hope you understand that

king a good deal o

ring to the ove

d not

ll only

e boat-house while she put on the overshoe.

for me to pick up. I'm perfectly worn out carrying some girl's

too, if you please." And her ton

lightly, to establish it in a more comfortable spot on her head. The beads had b

thank you

they are yo

them into

ne," she said indigna

her. "I'm sorry not to establish a more neighborly feeling with St. Agatha's. The stone wall may seem

young lord of the manor is always mistaken for the game-keeper's son by the pretty daughter of the curate who has come

od purpose-the wall,

of a boat-house is not, I submit, a pleasant loafing-place on a winter day. She marched before me, her hands in her pockets-I liked her particularly t

s do not a

n bars

l who shows no interest in either your prose or your rhymes has its embarrassments, partic

said, half-turning her face, t

now how a man will pledge his soul that a particular flake will never fade, never cease to rest upon a certain flying strand over a girlish temple? And he loses-his heart and his wager-in a breath! If you fail to understand these thing

d, really, I should have been over t

ared. "And we're not allowed to receive gen

trust Sister The

than

eux,-she is qui

re carefully, and her step slackened for a

always well

w her, o

She gives us

c-teacher, is she? Should you

ed moved to mirth by the reco

hungry-looking, with long talons that pound

ed approvingly. "But we have to tak

gatha's as though i

so bad! I've

tudents come from,-all

over-Cincinnati, Chicago

zines call the

d us once as the flower of the Middle West

felt that we had made strides toward such a comradeship as it is proper should exist between a school-girl in her teens and a male neighbor of twenty-

to live in a house where there's a mystery,-secret passages and chests of doubloons and all that

startled me, though she seemed

ny secret about the

he gardener, and

is drawing on h

lage think so. I've heard the ca

ttend to her ta

we call you sometimes the lord of the realm, and when we see you walking through the

is half-quoting and half-improvising, was irr

kicking the gate to knock off the sn

assumption is, to say the least, u

w my name and for me not to k

he gardener told me-and I am just Olivia. They don't

ike to lose her,-the life, the youth, the mirth for which she stood. The thought of Glenarm House amid the snow-hung wood and of the long winter evening t

ng, brushed past me through the gate and ra