E-text prepared by Suzanne Shell, Sankar Viswanathan,
and the Project Gutenberg Online Distributed Proofreading Team
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THE OLD STONE HOUSE
AND OTHER STORIES

BY

ANNA KATHARINE GREEN

Short Story Index Reprint Series

BOOKS FOR LIBRARIES PRESS

FREEPORT, NEW YORK

First Published 1891

CONTENTS.

[1]

THE OLD STONE HOUSE.

 was riding along one autumn day through a certain wooded portion ofNew York State, when I came suddenly upon an old stone house in whichthe marks of age were in such startling contrast to its unfinishedcondition that I involuntarily stopped my horse and took a long surveyof the lonesome structure. Embowered in a forest which had so grown inthickness and height since the erection of this building that theboughs of some of the tallest trees almost met across its decayedroof, it presented even at first view an appearance of picturesquesolitude almost approaching to desolation. But when my eye had time tonote that the moss was clinging to eaves from under which thescaffolding had never been taken, and that of the ten large windows inthe blackened front of the house only two had ever been furnished[2]with frames, the awe of some tragic mystery began to creep over me,and I sat and wondered at the sight till my increasing interestcompelled me to alight and take a nearer view of the place.

The great front door which had been finished so many years ago, butwhich had never been hung, leaned against the side of the house, ofwhich it had almost become a part, so long had they clung togetheramid the drippings of innumerable rains. Close beside it yawned theentrance, a large black gap through which nearly a century of stormshad rushed with their winds and wet till the lintels were green withmoisture and slippery with rot. Standing on this untrod threshold, Iinstinctively glanced up at the scaffolding above me, and started as Inoticed that it had partially fallen away, as if time were weakeningits supports and making the precipitation of the whole a threateningpossibility. Alarmed lest it might fall while I stood there, I did notlinger long beneath it, but, with a shudder which I afterwardsremembered, stepped into the house and proceeded to inspect itsrotting, naked, and unfinished walls. I found...