there it was. on top of the old grand stair case that gave way the the tragedy of time. It was a music box, trimmed with gold and silver round it's outer shell. if one were to look at it, they would think it was some gift left behind after the manor was mysteriously abandoned. but the music box held a sercet, a secret to the reason why the house was abandoned and sold to the hands of time. if one were to open the music box.....oh the tales it told with it's dancing figures in the center of the box twirllin with the haunting medloy that the music box sang softly. The figures would dance and twirl around and around. But the medoly was more than a song of olden times, it was the waltz to where the spirits danced to. spirits entered with graceful movement from the windows, to watlz with the couple dancing in the center of the ballroom. The same couple that was held in the music box. the music box was the only music to be heard with the ghostly ball. beautiful and chilling were the dancing figures with their sweaping ball gowns of the 19th century. They would dance and dance.....until the music box was closed, and as quickly as they came, they vanished, except for the couple that were in the music box, in silence, the couple watzled arcoss the floor of the haunted ballroom, they were lovers at one point till a terrible tragedy crushed the couple. a tragedy of jealously, a tradegy of murder. for there was another man who longed to dance and love the woman who was held in her lover's arms as they danced across the ballroom. An unstable fool was the jealous fool, a duke. he hated the woman's lover. HE should be in her arms like that for he loved her for years. But everytime he tried to win her over, she held on to the arm of her lover. She scorned the fool with the flowers he brought her daily, without fail, she threw the flowers back at him. the poor foul he longed for her. and was determined to have her as his wife. poor fool. for she would not have him. She was already in love, with the simple painter that she always danced with. The figure she held in the music box. The duke, mad with love and hatred, swore he would have her as his wife....even if he had to kill. even if he had to murder the painter, an insult was the painter in the eyes of the maddened duke. why should she love such a poor man, when she could have all the riches she could dream of, when she could marry a duke. No, she loved the simple and poor painter who painted landscapes, and the beauty of the sky. no, this poor painter would not take the duke's maiden away from him. He became insane for the love of the woman, he dreamed of her day and night, he saw her face everywhere in the mirror he looked in to shave his beard, in the carriage that he rode in. in the windows of his palace. he heard her laughter in the wind, in the horses' whine, in the streets, in the rain. He was insane with his frustration and denied love. he no longer cared about anything else. He let his manor go to waste, he spent all of his fortune on his desire with his denied love