"This is your room, my dear Agnes, where I hope you will find yourself at home," said my kind hostess. I thanked her, but secretly hoped that she would leave me alone with Mathilde, to hear the mystery of the haunted presence explained, for as yet we had no opportunity of a _tête-à-tête_. But the old lady lingered with motherly solicitude, until I had washed myself, and changed my traveling habit for a home dress; and then directing Jacinthe or "Jet," as she was nicknamed, to restore the room to order, she invited me down into the parlor. As I left the chamber, I observed Jet's eyes start out like beads, and she made a motion to follow us; but a peremptory gesture from her mistress repelled her, and she remained, though evidently terrified at the idea of being left alone. "Can it be possible," thought I, "that the child is afraid to stay by herself in the new house, when, of course, the supernatural inmate, if there is one, must be a denizen of the old one?" And at the same time I experienced a feeling of disappointed love of adventure in being accommodated with a chamber so shining in freshness and so distant in character as well as location from what I fancied must be the scene of the mystery. When we reached the parlor, we found a party of young people collected to celebrate Christmas Eve. But scarcely were the introductions over, before a servant opened the door and announced supper, and, conducted by Mrs. Legare, we all went out by way of the hall and the covered piazza to the dining-room in the old house, where the feast was spread. I cannot stop to analyze the sensation with which I crossed the threshold of this mystery-haunted house, and entered the quaint, old-fashioned parlor, where the supper table was set. The polished oak floor, the oak-paneled walls, the high, narrow, deep-set windows, the tall, black-walnut chimney-piece over the broad fireplace, flanked by a high cupboard in one corner, and a coffinlike clock in the other--all whispered of those who had lived and died there long years before. There was a well-spread and cheerfully-lighted table, and a merry, youthful company assembled around it; but even these animating influences were not sufficiently powerful to exorcise the thoughts of the dead--for, talkative and frolicksome though they were, their talk was still of the supernatural, of ghosts, and ghosts' seers. I did not talk--I was too earnestly interested in hearing. And I listened breathlessly to learn the mystery of the house. In vain! not a single allusion was made to a spectre in connection with Wolfbrake Lodge. They ignored the supposition. Perhaps they were really ignorant of it. Supper over and cleared away, the young people returned no more that night to the parlor in the new house, but prepared for a game of "Snap-apple" in the old dining-room, which their romping could not hurt.