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222
A New England Girlhood, Outlined from Memory (Beverly, MA)
·
Lucy Larcom
63
But
she
became
more
and
more
romantic
in
her
inventions.
A
distant
aristocratic-looking
mansion,
which
we
could
see
half-hidden
by
trees,
across
the
river,
she
assured
me
was
a
haunted
house,
and
that
she
had
passed
many
a
night
there,
seeing
unaccountable
sights,
and
hearing
mysterious
sounds.
She
further
announced
that
she
was
to
be
married,
some
time,
to
a
young
man
who
lived
over
there.
I
inferred
that
the
marriage
was
to
take
place
whenever
the
ghostly
tenants
of
the
house
would
give
their
consent.
She
revealed
to
me,
under
promise
of
strict
secrecy,
the
young
man's
name.
It
was
"Alonzo."
Not
long
after
I
picked
up
a
book
which
one
of
my
sisters
had
borrowed,
called
"Alonzo
and
Melissa,"
and
I
discovered
that
she
had
been
telling
me
page
after
page
of
"Melissa's"
adventures,
as
if
they
were
her
own.
The
fading
memory
I
have
of
the
book
is
that
it
was
a
very
silly
one;
and
when
I
discovered
that
the
rest
of
the
romantic
occurrences
she
had
related,
not
in
that
volume,
were
to
be
found
in
"The
Children
of
the
Abbey,"
I
left
off
listening
to
her.
I
do
not
think
I
regarded
her
stories
as
lies;
I
only
lost
my
interest
in
them
after
I
knew
that
they
were
all
of
her
own
clumsy
second-hand
making-up,
out
of
the
most
commonplace
material.
My
two
brothers
liked
to
play
upon
my
credulity.
When
my
brother
Ben
pointed
up
to
the
gilded
weather-cock
on
the
Old
South
steeple,
and
said
to
me
with
a
very
grave
face,--
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