."

"Do you think," asked Harlan, "that I look like Uncle Ebeneezer?"

"Indeed you don't!" cried Dorothy, "and that reminds me. I want to take
that picture down."

"To burn it?" inquired Harlan, slyly.

"No, I wouldn't burn it," answered Dorothy, somewhat spitefully, "but
there's no law against putting it in the attic, is there?"

"Not that I know of. Can we reach it from a chair?"

Together they mounted one of the haircloth monuments, slipping, as Dorothy
said, until it was like walking on ice.

"Now then," said Harlan, gaily, "come on down, Uncle! You're about to be
moved into the attic!"

The picture lunged forward, almost before they had touched it, the heavy
gilt frame bruising Dorothy's cheek badly. In catching it, Harlan turned
it completely around, then gave a low whistle of astonishment.

Pasted securely to the back was a fearsome skull and cross-bones, made on
wrapping paper with a brush and India ink. Below it, in great capitals,
was the warning inscription: "LET MY PICTURE ALONE!"

"What shall we do with it?" asked Harlan, endeavouring to laugh, though,
as he afterward admitted, he "felt creepy." "Shall I take it up to the
attic?"

"No," answered Dorothy, in a small, unnatural voice, "leave it where it
is."

While Harlan was putting it back, Dorothy, trembling from head to foot,
crept around to the back of the easel which bore Aunt Rebecca's portrait.
She was not at all surprised to find, on the back of it, a notice to this
effect: "ANYONE DARING TO MOVE MRS. JUDSON'S PICTURE WILL BE HAUNTED FOR
LIFE BY US BOTH."

"I don't doubt it," said Dorothy, somewhat viciously, when Harlan had
joined her. "What kind of a woman do you suppose she could have been, to
marry him? I'll bet she's glad she's dead!"

Dorothy was still wiping blood from her face and might not have been
wholly unprejudiced. Aunt Rebecca was a gentle, sweet-faced woman, if her
portrait told the truth, possessed of all the virtues save self-assertion
and dominated by habitual, unselfish kindness to others. She could not
have been discourteous even to Claudius Tiberius, who at this moment was
seated in state upon the sofa and purring industriously.

IV

Finances

"I've ordered the typewriter," said Dorothy, brightly, "and some nice new
note-paper, and a seal. I've just been reading about making virtue out of
necessity, so I've ordered 'At the Sign of the Jack-o'-Lantern' put on our
stationery, in gold, and a yellow pum