The place was cursed, so village gossip told, by Lost Sir Massingberd. This may be true or not. My tale itself may be open to suspicion of untruth, and this and that, which have been therein narrated, have already been pronounced "improbable," "impossible," "absurd." To critics of this sort, I have only to express my regret that the mission of the author has in my case been reversed, and facts have fallen into such clumsy hands as to seem fiction. Let me add one extract from the works of an author popular in my young days, but now much oftener quoted than perused. He is describing a picture sale attended by the _dilettanti_. A carking _connoisseur_ is abusing some effort of an unhappy artist to portray nature. "This fellow," cries he, "has even had the audacity to attempt to paint a fly! _That_ a fly, forsooth!" and he flips at it with contemptuous fingers. The fly flew away. _It was a real one!_ THE END. End of Project Gutenberg's Lost Sir Massingberd, v. 2/2, by James Payn