“Now, girls,” said my grandfather, “if you can tell me how such a piece of information would make you feel, I shall have no need of telling you the wonder, the terror, the curiosity and anxiety which it awakened in my mind. Sleeping or waking my thoughts were full of Annette’s story. Once I ventured to ask my mother why people thought my uncle’s castle haunted? ‘It is a common thing,’ she replied, ‘for the vulgar to tell marvellous tales of old buildings, castles in particular; but I hope that you will show your superior breeding, by never giving heed to such tales. Your father has been there much by day and night, and he never saw any thing wonderful; and it would grieve him if he knew that you had been listening to stories of supernatural agency.’ I assured her that I did not believe in ghosts; and I never again ventured to propose the subject. As years passed on, the impression became less vivid, until Annette’s tale of wonder seemed to me like some old familiar legend. I was about eighteen when I was suddenly summoned from the University to attend my uncle’s death-bed. When I found myself again in that old familiar place, although the old steward had died, and his place was filled by a stranger, the story of the old tower came first among the recollections of the past. My uncle was so wan and wasted that I should not have known him, yet he seemed exceedingly glad to see me. In the night as I sat beside his bed, he dismissed the nurse, saying that she must need rest and sleep. He then said that as I was his kinsman and successor, he hoped that he might confide to me something which nearly concerned his honor. I remarked that as his honor was mine he need be under no apprehension. So he commenced.