common with young men who want to
look smart--but his hat, and his clothes generally, were the really odd
part of him. The hat was a sort of low top-hat, with a curved brim; it
spread out at the top and it was brushed rough instead of smooth. His
coat was a blue swallow-tail with brass buttons. He had a broad tie
wound round and round his neck, and a Gladstone collar. His trousers
were tight all the way down and had straps under his feet. To put it in
the dullest, shortest way, he was "dressed in the fashion of eighty or
ninety years ago," as we read in the ghost stories. Evidently he knew
his way about very well. He came straight up to the front door and, as
far as I could tell, into the house, but I did not hear the door open
or shut or any steps on the stairs. He must, I thought, be in my
landlady's parlour downstairs.

I turned away from the window, and there was the next surprise. It was
as if there was no wall between me and the sitting-room. I saw straight
into it. There was a fire in the grate, and by it were sitting face to
face an old man and an old woman. I thought at once of what one of the
boys had said, and I looked curiously at them. They were, you would have
said, as fine specimens of an old-fashioned yeoman and his wife as
anyone could wish to see. The man was hale and red-faced, with grey
whiskers, smiling as he sat bolt upright in his arm-chair. The old lady
was rosy and smiling too, with a smart silk dress and a smart cap, and
tidy ringlets on each side of her face--a regular picture of wholesome
old age; and yet I hated them both. The young man, their son, I suppose,
was in the room standing at the door with his hat in his hand, looking
timidly at them. The old man turned half round in his chair, looked at
him, turned down the corners of his mouth, looked across at the old
lady, and they both smiled as if they were amused. The son came farther
into the room, put his hat down, leaned with both hands on the table,
and began to speak (though nothing could be heard) with an earnestness
that was painful to see, because I could be certain his pleading would
be of no use; sometimes he spread out his hands and shook them, every
now and again he brushed his eyes. He was very much moved, and so was I,
merely watching him. The old people were not; they leaned forward a
little in their chairs and sometimes smiled at each other--again as if
they were amused. At last he had done, and stood with his hands before
h