The gloomy old study seemed cheerful when I went in. The
old pictures on the walls smiled at me, and I sat down in my deep
chair with a new and delightful sensation that I was not alone.
The idea of having seen a ghost, and of feeling much the better for
it, was so absurd that I laughed softly, as I took up one of the
books I had brought with me and began to read.
That impression did not wear off. I slept peacefully, and in the
morning I threw open my windows to the summer air and looked down
at the garden, at the stretches of green and at the colored flower-
beds, at the circling swallows and at the bright water.
"A man might make a paradise of this place," I exclaimed. "A man
and a woman together!"
From that day the old Castle no longer seemed gloomy, and I think I
ceased to be sad; for some time, too, I began to take an interest
in the place, and to try and make it more alive. I avoided my old
Welsh nurse, lest she should damp my humor with some dismal
prophecy, and recall my old self by bringing back memories of my
dismal childhood. But what I thought of most was the ghostly
figure I had seen in the garden that first night after my arrival.
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