rt of thing anyhow, and then, too, I couldn't
find out that there had ever been anything wrong about the house
itself, except as the people who had lived there were said to have seen
and heard queer things in the vacant lot, so I thought you might be
able to get along, especially as you didn't look like a man who was
timid, and the house was such a bargain as I never handled before. But
this you tell me is beyond belief."

"Do you know the names of the people who formerly owned the vacant
lot?" asked Mr. Townsend.

"I don't know for certain," replied the agent, "for the original owners
flourished long before your or my day, but I do know that the lot goes
by the name of the old Gaston lot. What's the matter? Are you ill?"

"No; it is nothing," replied Mr. Townsend. "Get what you can for the
house; perhaps another family might not be as troubled as we have been."

"I hope you are not going to leave the city?" said the agent, urbanely.

"I am going back to Townsend Centre as fast as steam can carry me after
we get packed up and out of that cursed house," replied Mr. David
Townsend.

He did not tell the agent nor any of his family what had caused him to
start when told the name of the former owners of the lot. He
remembered all at once the story of a ghastly murder which had taken
place in the Blue Leopard. The victim's name was Gaston and the
murderer had never been discovered.

THE LOST GHOST

Mrs. John Emerson, sitting with her needlework beside the window,
looked out and saw Mrs. Rhoda Meserve coming down the street, and knew
at once by the trend of her steps and the cant of her head that she
meditated turning in at her gate. She also knew by a certain something
about her general carriage--a thrusting forward of the neck, a bustling
hitch of the shoulders--that she had important news. Rhoda Meserve
always had the news as soon as the news was in being, and generally
Mrs. John Emerson was the first to whom she imparted it. The two women
had been friends ever since Mrs. Meserve had married Simon Meserve and
come to the village to live.

Mrs. Meserve was a pretty woman, moving with graceful flirts of
ruffling skirts; her clear-cut, nervous face, as delicately tinted as a
shell, looked brightly from the plumy brim of a black hat at Mrs.
Emerson in the window. Mrs. Emerson was glad to see her coming. She
returned the greeting with enthusiasm, then rose hurriedly, ran into
the cold parlour and bro