We never reached the upper floors, at least till after Cousin Mary's death, when it seems as if there was an expedition to the attic in company with some older person of authority. It was a brief and somewhat nervous experience. Those were the days when all ghost stories might possibly be true and the attic, like the "parlor," was dark. The visit was long enough to leave only a memory of dim corners, piles of old horse-hide trunks, a remarkable collection of ancient cooking utensils adapted for use over the open fires of colonial and Revolutionary days--where, we wonder, has all this old kitchen equipage gone?--and rafters from which hung dried roots and leaves of one kind and another. It was a distinct relief to get out of doors again. But of course the mysterious qualities we attributed to certain precincts of Cousin Mary's house existed entirely in our youthful minds. No one could be imagined who had less to conceal than this serene old lady. Yet it was natural that there should be romantic stories about her. She had never married and it was not strange that speculations about her past should concern themselves with early love affairs. These fancies crystallized into the quite customary tradition that she had been engaged in her early youth to a young man whose future was then so uncertain that her parents objected to the match. The years have dimmed recollection of the details of the story--there were other romantic complications--but at all events the young man afterwards married another and lived to disprove the early doubts of sceptical parents as to his chance of success in life. But Cousin Mary remained true to her early love. Many years after her death one of the children who used occasionally to call upon her, and to whom even now the odor of certain old-fashioned flowers will bring back a vivid picture of that little garden, had a curious dream about her. He was again in that familiar sitting-room, but in some way he was invisible to the other two occupants. One was of course Cousin Mary--but quite a different Cousin Mary. Youth had come back to her. She was a young girl again--and one of the prettiest young girls the dreamer had ever seen. Her hair was dressed high at the back of her head. A great comb was in it. Curls hung down over her cheeks, as sitting in the familiar diminutive rocking-chair she bent her head forward listening to the words of her visitor. Old lace was about her throat which was of a singular whiteness and beauty. Her gown was of some shimmering stuff, high-waisted, with many flounces. Her whole figure gave the beholder a sense of delicate and rather fragile beauty. She was a creature of race--a thoroughbred. Seated close before her and talking softly and eagerly was a good-looking young man in the uniform of a naval officer of, I should guess, the period of the second war with Great Britain. His sword and cap lay on the floor beside his chair.