“How’s the leg, dear,” she asked, “You’re not limping any more.” Till that moment Madge had not thought of it. “I think it must be all right,” she said, “I had forgotten it anyhow. Blanche, dear, you won’t be frightened for me, will you, but--but I have seen the twins.” For a moment Blanche’s face whitened with terror. “What?” she said in a whisper. “Yes, I saw them just now. But they were kind, they smiled at me, and I was so sorry for them. And somehow I am sure I have nothing to fear.” * * * * * It seems that Madge was right, for nothing untoward has come to her. Something, her attitude to them, we must suppose, her pity, her sympathy, touched and dissolved and annihilated the curse. Indeed, I was at Church Peveril only last week, arriving there after dark. Just as I passed the gallery door, Blanche came out. “Ah, there you are,” she said, “I’ve just been seeing the twins. They looked too sweet and stopped nearly ten minutes. Let us have tea at once.” CATERPILLARS I saw a month or two ago in an Italian paper that the Villa Cascana, in which I once stayed, had been pulled down, and that a manufactory of some sort was in process of erection on its site. There is therefore no longer any reason for refraining from writing of those things which I myself saw (or imagined I saw) in a certain room and on a certain landing of the villa in question, nor from mentioning the circumstances which followed, which may or may not (according to the opinion of the reader) throw some light on or be somehow connected with this experience. The Villa Cascana was in all ways but one a perfectly delightful house, yet, if it were standing now, nothing in the world--I use the phrase in its literal sense--would induce me to set foot in it again, for I believe it to have been haunted in a very terrible and practical manner. Most ghosts, when all is said and done, do not do much harm; they may perhaps terrify, but the person whom they visit usually gets over their visitation. They may on the other hand be entirely friendly and beneficent. But the appearances in the Villa Cascana were not beneficent, and had they made their “visit” in a very slightly different manner, I do not suppose I should have got over it any more than Arthur Inglis did. * * * * * The house stood on an ilex-clad hill not far from Sestri di Levante on the Italian Riviera, looking out over the iridescent blues of that enchanted sea, while behind it rose the pale green chestnut woods that climb up the hillsides till they give place to the pines that, black in contrast with them, crown the slopes. All round it the garden in the luxuriance of mid-spring bloomed and was fragrant, and the scent of magnolia and rose, borne on the salt freshness of the winds from the sea, flowed like a stream through the cool vaulted rooms.