I recovered myself sufficiently to think that the figure looked like Leila. I hurried to her room. Both windows were open wide. The moonlight streamed in over the great fir tree, lighting up the whole chamber, and one hasty glance showed me that her bed was empty. I groped my way downstairs again and hurried out the library door.
Midway on the garden walk, I met Leila. She was walking slowly with wide-open eyes, utterly unconscious of my presence.
It struck me as very curious that she was completely dressed, in a soft white cashmere, her favorite dress, and her manner of walking was very peculiar. She seemed to be leaning toward someone. Her face was upturned with an expression of rapt attention, and now and then she smiled and moved her lips as if speaking, but I could distinguish neither words nor sound.
Without saying anything to Leila, I determined to speak to Mother, but I could not bring myself to mention the two strange meetings of which Leila had told me. To my surprise, Mother appeared to think little of the sleepwalking; she said that she herself had been subject to the affliction as a young girl. After that I became so accustomed to Leila’s nocturnal walks in the garden that I am sure I slept through some of them.
The sultry days of August came. I had never known such oppressive heat. For weeks we had no rain. At last, one evening we started to bed feeling a slight breeze stirring, and we said hopefully, “Before morning, we shall have rain.” I must have slept soundly for several hours before I was awakened by a frightful flash of lightning, followed immediately by a deafening crash. Before I could gather my senses, down came the longed-for rain, in drenching torrents.
My first thought was of the open windows throughout the house, and I flew from room to room closing them. On my reaching Leila’s room, a sudden flash illuminated the entire chamber and showed me that the room was empty.
“Leila is out in the storm!” I cried out, and two or three of us took a lantern and went into the garden. Halfway down the walk we found her—her life shattered by a lightning bolt!
We bore her into the house and up to her bed. It was then that we realized she was wearing Mother’s wedding dress, from an old cedar chest in the garret. Leila had arrayed herself in the quaint, old-fashioned gown, and upon her head she had placed mother’s bridal veil of antique lace.
The cruel lightning had failed to mar her exquisite beauty. Not until we had laid her away in the grave was everything explained. A few days after the funeral, I was in her room. On opening a little escritoire, I found a folded letter addressed to me in Leila’s handwriting. The letter told me of the first time the handsome stranger in the garden spoke to her, and, when he did, it was a declaration of love!
This is what he told her:
“Leila, the power of love has drawn me from a far-off country to your side. Without question or fear, will you put your trust in me?” After quoting his words to her, she revealed her own plans, saying, “I am going to that far-off country from which he came to me, and it may be many years before I shall see you all again.”
It was her goodbye. This astonishing confession of Leila’s was never known before outside the family.
Years went by and the city grew. Finally, through the constant raising of the street, the house seemed so low that Father thought it advisable to move it to the side lawn where it now stands. When the library wing was removed, the workmen discovered in the low cellar beneath the bedroom the skeleton of a man. It was given decent burial near the graves of our own dead, and Father yielded to what he thought was a peculiar fancy of mine: He buried the man’s bones beside Leila’s.
Located at 289 State Street, between Elliot and State Streets in Springfield, Massachusetts, the Alexander-Phillips House remains one of Springfield’s most famous residences. It was built in 1816 according to the design of Asher Benjamin, then America’s leading architect.
HOW TO KILL A SPY
SEVEN STARS TAVERN, WOODSTOWN, NEW JERSEY
Seven Stars Tavern is said to be the champion haunted house of New Jersey.
There are houses that have an overwhelming sense of mystery, houses that reach out and capture your imagination by evoking thoughts of the spirits of people who have lived within their walls. For me, there was just such a house.
Years ago, when I was a child living in Woodstown, New Jersey, I would pass it on sunny days and rainy days alike. Sometimes I would see it looming darkly beside the road, wrapped in dense fog common to this low-lying area. But whatever the weather, I invariably felt the house’s spell. Named Seven Stars Tavern, it was built in 1762 at the intersection of Kings Highway and the Woodstown–Auburn Road.
Many stories of the supernatural are connected with Seven Stars, but space here allows for only the most famous one. It is the story of the ghost of a Tory spy. The event upon which it is based is said to be a historical fact. According to the owner, Robert Brooks, a man loyal to the British during the Revolutionary War was supplying information to King George’s soldiers. The soldiers would then conduct foraging raids, stealing cows and food from area farmers.
Neighbors eventually found out about the Tory’s actions and decided to take care of the scoundrel. A group of men dragged him up to the attic of Seven Stars, tied one end of a rope around his neck and the other around a wooden
