laid on
it."

Mrs. Packard's voice fell, and I cast her a humorous look.

"Were there ghosts in those days?" I lightly asked.

Her answer was calm enough. "Not yet, but the place must have been
desolate enough for one. I have sometimes tried to imagine the scene
surrounding that broken-down old man. There was no furniture in the
room, save what was indispensable to his bare comfort. Miss Thankful
expressly said there was no carpet,--you will presently see why. Even
the windows had no other protection than the bare shutters. But he was
in his old home, and seemed content till Miss Charity fell sick, and
they had to call in a nurse to assist Miss Thankful, who by this time
had a dozen lodgers to look after. Then he grew very restless. Miss
Thankful said he seemed to be afraid of this nurse, and always had a
fever after having been left alone with her; but he gave no reason for
his fears, and she herself was too straitened in means and in too much
trouble otherwise to be affected by such mere whims, and went on doing
her best, sitting with him whenever the opportunity offered, and making
every effort to conceal the anxiety she felt for her poor nephew from
her equally poor brother. The disease under which the brother labored
was a fatal one, and he had not many days to live. She was startled when
one day her brother greeted her appearance, with an earnest entreaty for
the nurse to be sent out for a little while, as this was his last day,
and he had something of great importance to communicate to her before he
died.

"She had not dreamed of his being so low as this, but when she came to
look at him, she saw, that he had not misstated his case, and that he
was really very near death. She was in a flurry and wanted to call in
the neighbors and rout her sister up from her own sick bed to care for
him. But he wanted nothing and nobody, only to be left alone with her.

"So she sent the nurse out and sat down on the side of the bed to hear
what he had to say to her, for he looked very eager and was smiling in a
way to make her heart ache.

"You must remember," continued Mrs. Packard, "that at the time Miss
Thankful was telling this story we were in the very room where it had
all happened. As she reached this part of her narration, she pointed
to the wall partitioning off the corridor, and explained that this was
where the bed stood,--an old wooden one brought down from her own attic.

"'It creaked when I sat down on it,'