"There is so little to tell," she said; "that _is_ the mystery. These people came there about twenty years ago. The house had been uninhabited for some time before that. It belonged to some one whose affairs had gone wrong, and there was some difficulty about letting it. And it was a good deal out of repair. Still there was no prejudice against it except that it was and is an extraordinarily dreary-looking place. Perhaps that was the attraction to the strange people who did take it. Our old gardener has told us about their coming. One day a gentleman arrived by train and drove out to our village. He went over the Grim House all by himself--there was only an old woman at the lodge who kept the keys, and he wouldn't let her go through the house with him. He was only about an hour there altogether, and then he drove back to the station as fast as he could." "What was he like?" I could not help asking. "Did any one ever tell you?" "I don't need to be told," was the unexpected reply. "I have seen him for myself once a week ever since I can remember. At church, I mean," she went on, smiling at my puzzled expression. "They do come to church--all of them--and this one is the eldest of them. Of course he must have been younger-looking twenty years ago. Well, a few days after this stranger's first appearance, workmen arrived at the Grim House, a whole lot of them, Scart--that's our gardener--says. Some of them from a good distance, and they set to at the house and got it into order in no time. All at the new tenant's expense. Scart always says it must have cost a `sight of money.' I don't fancy much was done in the way of making it pretty, for by all accounts, or rather by the few accounts that ever reach us, it is as plain and severe inside as it is grim outside. But any way, it was put into thorough repair, and then--they all came! They arrived late at night, so that no one knew anything about it till the next day." Isabel stopped. I think she enjoyed the impression which she saw her story was making upon me. "And who were the `all'?" I asked. "Four people," she replied. "Two men and two women--brothers and sisters they were soon known to be. None of them very young even then, and now the sisters both look fifty at least, and the elder brother older than that; the youngest-looking of them is the second brother. They arrived, as I say, twenty years ago, and from that day to this-- would you believe it, Regina?--they have _never_ set foot outside their garden wall, except to come to church every Sunday morning, which they do in all weathers. There is a standing order at the inn for a fly to come for them every Sunday all the year round." "How extraordinary!" I exclaimed. "Has no one any idea why they behave so strangely? Are any of them out of their minds? Did none of the neighbours call on them?"