As I was rising from the table Nixon
himself made this remark:

"Mrs. Packard will be glad to see you in her room up-stairs any time
after ten o'clock. Ellen will show you where." Then, as I was framing
a reply, he added in a less formal tone: "I hope you were not disturbed
last night. I told the girls not to be so noisy."

Now they had been very quiet, so I perceived that he simply wanted to
open conversation.

"I slept beautifully," I assured him. "Indeed, I'm not easily kept
awake. I don't believe I could keep awake if I knew that a ghost would
stalk through my room at midnight."

His eyes opened, and he did just what I had intended him to do,--met my
glance directly.

"Ghosts!" he repeated, edging uneasily forward, perhaps with the
intention of making audible his whisper: "Do you believe in ghosts?"

I laughed easily and with a ringing merriment, like the light-hearted
girl I should be and am not.

"No," said I, "why should I? But I should like to. I really should enjoy
the experience of coming face to face with a wholly shadowless being."

He stared and now his eyes told nothing. Mechanically I moved to go,
mechanically he stepped aside to give me place. But his curiosity or his
interest would not allow him to see me pass out without making another
attempt to understand me. Stammering in his effort to seem indifferent,
he dropped this quiet observation just as I reached the door.

"Some people say, or at least I have heard it whispered in the
neighborhood, that this house is haunted. I've never seen anything,
myself."

I forced myself to give a tragic start (I was half ashamed of my arts),
and, coming back, turned a purposely excited countenance toward him.

"This house!" I cried. "Oh, how lovely! I never thought I should have
the good fortune of passing the night in a house that is really haunted.
What are folks supposed to see? I don't know much about ghosts out of
books."

This nonplussed him. He was entirely out of his element. He glanced
nervously at the door and tried to seem at his ease; perhaps tried to
copy my own manner as he mumbled these words:

"I've not given much attention to the matter, Miss. It's not long since
we came here and Mrs. Packard don't approve of our gossiping with
the neighbors. But I think the people have mostly been driven away by
strange noises and by lights which no one could explain, flickering
up over the ceilings from the halls below. I don't want to scare you,
M