In a district of Lambeth, which is now the mart of trade, but which at the period of our narrative was scarcely inhabited, and consisted but of a mass of old melancholy-looking buildings, which had been long since condemned as dangerous, there stood one house in particular, the exterior of which presented to the eye an appearance of such utter decay that it would have required an adventurous person to venture within its crumbling walls and mossy prisons, who, for the sake of a short cut to some of the high roads passed the old building, would walk out into the road way rather than run even the momentary risk of walking close to its dilapidated walls. The world, however, is ever being taken in by appearances. Not only was this house much stronger and more substantial than its neighbours, but within it there was a degree of comfort and even luxury which no one could for a moment have surmised. It is true the windows were either broken, or so much begrimed with dirt that it was impossible to say if they were glass or not, and here and there a brick was displaced so naturally that it seemed to have fallen out by the natural decay incidental to the age of the structure. Such, however was not the case, for these signs and tokens of insecurity had been manufactured in the silence of the night for the express purpose of deterring any person from entering the gloomy house, or supposing for a moment that it was inhabited by other than rats and mice. There were no persons living very close to this wretched-looking residence, and the poor squalid creatures, who did occasionally seek a shelter for a few nights in some of the “condemned” houses, never approached that one, for it had the reputation of being haunted, inasmuch as twice had strangers, in passing through the locality after nightfall, called attention to lights dimly observable in the house, and once a man had entered a little hostelry in the immediate neighbourhood, and while his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth with fear, and he trembled in every limb, he said he had seen a sight at one of the lower windows of that particular house, which he would not see again for his soul’s sake, and after fortifying himself with a bumper of spiced canary, he had taken his leave, being firmly believed, and leaving behind the character of the house, which lost nothing by being repeated from mouth to mouth, and which produced so powerful an effect upon the superstitious inhabitants of the vicinity that it is doubtful if any bribe of sufficient magnitude could possibly be offered to induce any one of them ever to pass it even after at sunset.