I, that please some, try all: both joy and terror Of good and bad;—that make and unfold error— Now take upon me in the name of Time To see my wings. Impute it not a crime To me or my swift passage that I slide O’er sixteen years, and leave the ground untried Of that wide gap. WINTER’S TALE.
The course of our narrative obliges us to pass over sixteen years ere we again introduce its characters to our readers. To those of them who may happen to have lived nearly twice that period, the interval will not appear long.
Lucy Ellet had removed on the day following her marriage to the house of Henry Elmore, situated about five miles distant from New Haven. It was a cheerful country residence, fitted up with much neatness. Around it, lay a perfect wilderness of flower-gardens, amid which a refined taste had caused to be erected little summer-houses, which afforded points of view over the distant bay of New Haven. Attached to these grounds was a large farm, over which Lucy soon learned to preside with much matronly grace and dignity. The house itself had been originally small; but shortly after the marriage of the owner, it had been enlarged by the addition of a wing at the back part. This was not exactly adjoining the main building, but connected with it by a corridor. With regard to the purpose for which it had been added nothing was known in the neighborhood with any certainty. Many stories had been circulated concerning its object, and a belief had at length become current that it was haunted by spirits. There were those, indeed, who stated that they had beheld through the opening of a curtain at the window a strangely emaciated face, with sunken eyes of an unnatural lustre, and a look that was not of earth.
The mystery that was attached to this portion of the building, and the tales that were circulated in relation to it—together with the former reports that had attached to Lucy Ellet and her young sister—rendered its inmates avoided and unpopular throughout the neighborhood. No distress or mollification, however, seemed to be felt at this circumstance by Henry Elmore and his wife, who showed no disposition for the society of their neighbors, and who no more exchanged visits with any other persons than Governor H. and his wife, (who still resided in L.,) visits which were mutually given and rendered as often as the distance that intervened between their homes allowed.