PROLOGUE.
When I was a boy of fourteen, there came one day to my father's house an old man of a very remarkable appearance. He was tall and rather thin and shadowy, but his face wore a benevolent expression. He was dressed in a good suit of dark-brown cloth; and when I first saw him, as I opened the door at which he had knocked more than once, I started back astonished at his venerable figure. He asked me, with a mild, soft voice, what my name was, and where my father and mother might be. I showed him into our principal sitting-room, and sent my mother to him.
Their interview was a long one, but what passed at it I never knew. When my mother came from the room, she closed the door carefully, leaving the old man shut up alone. She had been crying, but her face did not express sorrow or pain; nevertheless, as I belong to a rather romantic family I began to imagine all sorts of things. There was a mystery connected with that old man which I determined to unravel. It was my duty, if he was a wicked old man, to detect and expose his wickedness. I loved my mother better than my life, and began to hate that venerable personage, who I thought might be the Prince of Darkness himself in disguise, because he had made her cry. I could not, however, quite make up my mind whether I had better burst open the door, and instantly throw him out of
