There were wonderful legends current amongst the children of Glaston
concerning that lake, its depth, and the creatures in it; and one
terrible story, which had been made a ballad of, about a lady
drowned in a sack, whose ghost might still be seen when the moon was
old, haunting the gardens and the house. Hence it came that none of
them went near it, except those few whose appetites for adventure
now and then grew keen enough to prevent their imaginations from
rousing more fear than supplied the proper relish of danger. The
house itself even those few never dared to enter.
Not so had it been with Helen and Leopold. The latter had
imagination enough to receive everything offered, but Helen was the
leader, and she had next to none. In her childhood she had heard the
tales alluded to from her nurses, but she had been to school since,
and had learned not to believe them; and certainly she was not one
to be frightened at what she did not believe. So when Leopold came
in the holidays, the place was one of their favoured haunts, and
they knew every cubic yard in the house.
"Here," said Helen to her cousin, as she opened the door in a little
closet, and showed a dusky room which had no window but a small one
high up in the wall of a back staircase, "here is one room into
which I never could get Poldie without the greatest trouble.
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