all up for us if
we'll have it, but of course I wouldn't say anything about it till I'd
spoken to you."

"Just as you please, Sophonisba," said Miss Faithful.

"He says he'll give us a bit of ground down on the flat for a garden, and
let his man dig it up for us. I went up and looked at the house. It ain't
so much out of repair as you'd think."

"Did you see the burnt spot on the floor?" asked Miss Faithful with some
interest.

"Yes, I saw it--a great blackened place. Most likely he spilled some of
his chemical stuff on it."

Miss Sophonisba was not, as she expressed herself, one to let the grass
grow under her feet. She concluded the bargain for the house next day, and
informed their landlord--who, by the by, was a son of their old neighbor,
Widow Ball--of their intention to move. That gentleman was not at all
pleased at the idea of losing his tenants. In vain he offered to recede
from the obnoxious demand of four shillings more. Miss Sophonisba told him
that she had made up her mind, and that _she_ wasn't in the habit of going
back from her bargains when she had given her word, whatever other people
might be.

"Well, Miss T----," said Mr. Ball, "I hope you won't repent. They've said
queer things about that house ever since the old doctor went off so
mysterious. Some folks said he drowned himself in that place in the
cellar."

"Stuff and nonsense!" said Miss Sophonisba. "The old doctor never hurt any
one when he was alive, except by borrowing money of them, and it ain't
likely he'll want to do that now that he's dead; and if he did, I
shouldn't let him have it."

"Well, my mother was in the house when Miss Eldridge came running up the
stairs as pale as a sheet, and said he came behind her and caught hold of
her shoulder."

"Joanna Eldridge was always a poor, miserable, shiftless, narvy thing,"
said Miss Sophonisba, "and half the time you couldn't believe a word she
said."

"Well she was a connexion of our'n, Miss T----, and I always thought there
was something in it. Narves won't account for everything."

"Well, I never trusted her a bit more for that," said Miss Sophonisba. "I
know one time she told mother a long story about how you sent in a bill
for shoes to Widow Sumner that James had paid you before he died, and she
said you'd have made her a deal of trouble if she hadn't ha' found the
receipt. A good many folks talked about it, but I always said it was just
one of Joanna's stories."

Mr. Ball wa