It was, they say, in those, its bright, early days, the property of the Pontalbas, a noble Franco-Spanish family; and I have mentioned these points, which have no close bearing upon our present story, mainly to clear the field of all mere they-says, and leave the ground for what we know to be authenticated fact, however strange.

The entrance, under the balcony, is in Royal street.  Within a deep, white portal, the walls and ceiling of which are covered with ornamentations, two or three steps, shut off from the sidewalk by a pair of great gates of open, ornamental iron-work with gilded tops, rise to the white door.  This also is loaded with a raised work of urns and flowers, birds and fonts, and Phoebus in his chariot.  Inside, from a marble floor, an iron-railed, winding stair ("said the spider to the fly”) leads to the drawing-rooms on the floor even with the balcony.  These are very large.  The various doors that let into them, and the folding door between them, have carved panels.  A deep frieze covered with raised work—­white angels with palm branches and folded wings, stars, and wreaths—­runs all around, interrupted only by high, wide windows that let out between fluted Corinthian pilasters upon the broad open balcony.  The lofty ceilings, too, are beautiful with raised garlandry.

[Illustration:  THE ENTRANCE OF THE HAUNTED HOUSE.  From a Photograph.] Measure one of the windows—­eight feet across.  Each of its shutters is four feet wide.  Look at those old crystal chandeliers.  And already here is something uncanny—­at the bottom of one of these rooms, a little door in the wall.  It is barely a woman’s height, yet big hinges jut out from the jamb, and when you open it and look in you see only a small dark place without steps or anything to let you down to its floor below, a leap of several feet.  It is hardly noteworthy; only neither you nor——­can make out what it ever was for.

The house is very still.  As you stand a moment in the middle of the drawing-room looking at each other you hear the walls and floors saying those soft nothings to one another that they so often say when left to themselves.  While you are looking straight at one of the large doors that lead into the hall its lock gives a whispered click and the door slowly swings open.  No cat, no draft, you and——­exchange a silent smile and rather like the mystery; but do you know?  That is an old trick of those doors, and has made many an emotional girl smile less instead of more; although I doubt not any carpenter could explain it.

I assume, you see, that you visit the house when it is vacant.  It is only at such times that you are likely to get in.  A friend wrote me lately:  “Miss ——­ and I tried to get permission to see the interior.  Madame said the landlord had requested her not to allow visitors; that over three hundred had called last winter, and had been refused for that reason.  I thought of the three thousand who would call if they knew its story.”  Another writes:  “The landlord’s orders are positive that no photographer of any kind shall come into his house.”