Page:Ruth Fielding at Briarwood Hall.djvu/84

76 while he sculped the marble the artist likewise made love to the young lady and they ran away and were married, leaving the old gentleman nothing but the cold marble statue playing the marble harp, in place of a daughter.

"The father's heart at once became as adamant as the marble itself, and he refused to support the sculptor and his wife. Now, either the runaway couple died miserably of starvation in a garret, or were drowned at sea, or were wrecked in a railroad accident, or some other dreadful catastrophe happened to them—I'm not sure which; for after a time there began to be something strange about the fountain. The old man lived here alone with his servants for a number of years; but the servants would not remain long with him, for they said the place was haunted."

"Oh my!" exclaimed Helen.

"That's right, Miss Cameron. Please show the proper amount of thrilling interest. They said the fountain was queer. The water never poisoned anybody; but sometimes the marble strings of the marble harp in the marble hand of the marble daughter would be heard to twang in the night. Weird music came from the fountain at ghostly hours. Of course, the little harp the statue holds is in the form of a lyre; and what the people were who told these stories about the ghostly twanging of the instrument—you may