“Light on de island, miss; you kin see it plain as star a-shinin’!” “Light on the island? Well, I will go and see myself. Where can this light be seen from?” “From the garret window, miss, sure as you’re born.” “Go on before me,” she said, rising from her recumbent posture, and following the man up the several flight of stairs to the attic. Arrived there, in the very front room where Elsie had been a prisoner on the last night of her stay at Mount Calm, they paused. Miss Seabright advanced to the window, threw it up, and looked out at the clear, brilliant, starlight night. There was not a breath of wind stirring. The air was still and cold. The rolling hills and plains white with snow, and intersected only by the belt of forest around the foot of Mount Calm, reached silently on to the dark boundary of the sea. “Why, I see no light at sea; none anywhere except the myriad lights of stars in heaven!” said Miss Seabright, letting down the window. “Bress your soul, miss, no more you can’t; leastwise you puts out de candle and looks t’rough the spyglass!” “Why, here’s a fellow who, not having causes of trouble enough near him, must put out the light and take a telescope to find out distant ones! Well, set the candle outside the door, and give me the glass.” And taking the telescope she went again to the window and hoisted it. “Yes,” she said, after taking sight, “yes, there is a light shining still and clear, and apparently fixed near the ruins of the old lodge!” “Oh, it can be seen plain as possible from the village,” said Miss Joe, who now entered, followed by other members of the household. Miss Seabright closed the window, and, turning to the assembled group, said, with her singular smile: “Well, now, this is really a very small affair for conjecture, and could interest none but a country family in the depth of winter. Let us go downstairs. It is probably some poor, lone soul, who, having no shelter, has put together the ruins of the old lodge and lives there and supports himself by fishing and shooting.” “Yes,” said Miss Joe, “that might be well enough, and nobody thinks nothing of it, only you see, honey, the folks from the village have been over on the island in the broad daytime searching, and they can’t find the leastest signs of human habitations; the poor, dear old lodge is more tumble-downder than ever, as in course it must naturally be every winter, with no one to keep the dear, old crippled thing on its legs. Lord, child, the neighbors from Huttontown found all so desolute that the very stars of heaven were shining down into the water collected in the cellar. No roof, no chimneys, no floors even; nothing but the lonesome, desolute walls and the stagnant cellar. They didn’t find anybody, nor any sign of anybody, though they searched all over the island—but, mind, that was at sunset, and that night about dark the light blazed up there as bright as ever!” “Why did not the neighbors go and search then?”