There was something provocatively fascinating in the tree-girt, decrepit pile before me, for it spoke of the graces and spaciousness of a bygone era and a far more southerly environment. It was a typical wooden plantation house of the classic, early Nineteenth Century pattern, with two and a half stories and a great Ionic portico whose pillars reached up as far as the attic and supported a triangular pediment. Its state of decay was extreme and obvious: one of the vast columns having rotted and fallen to the ground, while the upper piazza or balcony had sagged dangerously low. Other buildings, I judged, had formerly stood near it. As I mounted the broad stone steps to the low porch and the carved and four-lighted doorway I felt distinctly nervous, and started to light a cigarette--desisting when I saw how dry and inflammable everything about me was. Though now convinced that the house was deserted, I nevertheless hesitated to violate its dignity without knocking; so I tugged at the rusty iron knocker until I could get it to move, and finally set up a cautious rapping which seemed to make the whole place shake and rattle. There was no response; yet once more I plied the cumbrous, creaking device, as much to dispel the sense of unholy silence and solitude as to arouse any possible occupant of the ruin. Somewhere near the river I heard the mournful note of a dove, and it seemed as if the coursing water itself were faintly audible. Half in a dream, I seized and rattled the ancient latch, and finally gave the great six-paneled door a frank trying. It was unlocked, as I could see in a moment; and though it stuck and grated on its hinges I began to push it open, stepping through it into a vast shadowy hall as I did so. But the moment I took this step I regretted it. It was not that a legion of specters confronted me in that dim and dusty hall with the ghostly Empire furniture, but that I knew at once that the place was not deserted after all. There was a creaking on the great curved staircase, and the sound of faltering footsteps slowly descending. Then I saw a tall, bent figure silhouetted for an instant against the great Palladian window on the landing. * * * * * My first terror was soon over, and as the figure descended the final flight I was ready to greet the house-holder whose privacy I had invaded. In the semi-darkness I could see him reach into his pocket for a match. There came a flare as he lighted a small kerosene lamp which stood on a rickety console table near the foot of the stairs. The feeble glow revealed the stooping figure of a very tall, emaciated old man, disordered in dress and unshaven as to face, yet for all that with the bearing and expression of a gentleman. I did not wait for him to speak, but at once began to explain my presence.