The story had held us, round the fire, sufficiently breathless, but except the obvious remark that it was gruesome, as, on Christmas Eve in an old house, a strange tale should essentially be, I remember no comment uttered till somebody happened to say that it was the only case he had met in which such a visitation had fallen on a child... "...it casts a spell not merely shadowy but extensive: it feels longer than it is...James...keeps the tension mounting. His story grows ever grimmer, ever scarier...[and] presents a bracing account of rampant terror." THE NEW YORKER