'I have caught one of them,' cried the person. 'Fetch the lantern.' 'I am innocent of the murder!' cried I. 'I swear to you that I am. They did not fall by my dagger, I can assure you.' 'Who? what murder?' cried he. 'Hollo, help! here is a murder committed.' 'Not by me!' cried I. 'Not by me, not by me! No, no, no, my hands are unstained with their blood.' And now a lantern being brought, I perceived several servants in liveries, who first examined my features, and then dragged me back into the building, while they searched there for some poachers, whom they had been way-laying when they found me. The building! And what was the building, think you? Why nothing more than the shell of an unfinished house,--a mere modern morsel of a tasteless temple! And what were the banditti who had knocked me down, think you? Why nothing more than a few harmless sheep, that now lay huddled together in a corner! And what were the two corpses, think you? Why nothing more than two Heathen statues for the little temple!--And the ruffians that talked of their having killed, and having to kill, were only the poachers, who had killed four hares! Here then was the whole mystery developed, and a great deal of good fright gone for nothing. However, some trouble still remained to me. The servants, swearing that I was either concerned with the poachers, or in some murder, dragged me down a shrubbery, till we reached a large mansion. We then entered a lighted hall: one of them went to call his master, and after a few minutes, an elderly gentleman, with a troop of young men and women at his heels, came out of a parlour. 'Is that the murderess? What a young murderess! I never saw a murderess before!' was whispered about by the ladies. 'What murder is this you were talking of, young woman?' said the gentleman to me. 'I will tell you with pleasure,' answered I. 'You must know that I am a wandering beggar-girl, without home, parents, or friends; and when the storm began, I ran, for shelter, into the Temple of Taste, as your servants called it. So, thinking it a castle, and some sheep which threw me down, banditti, and a couple of statues, corpses, of course it was quite natural for me to suppose, when two men entered, and began to talk of having killed something, that they meant these very corpses. Was it not natural now? And so that is the plain and simple narrative of the whole affair.' To my great surprise, a general burst of laughter ran round the hall. 'Sheep banditti, and statues corpses. Dear me,--Bless me--Well to be sure!' tittered the misses. 'Young woman,' said the gentleman, 'your incoherent account inclines me to think you concerned in some atrocious transaction, which I must make it my business to discover.' 'I am sure,' said a young lady, 'she carries the gallows in her face.' ''Tis so pretty a gallows,' said a young gentleman, 'that I wish I were hanging upon it.' 'Fie brother,' said the young lady, 'how can you talk so to a murderess?'