ht be seen hanging
undried upon his withered cheeks.

So much for one oddity which may stand as a sample of many others.

One glance at the room into which he ushered me showed why he
cherished so marked a dislike for visitors. It was bare to the
point of discomfort, and had it not been for a certain quaintness
in the shape of the few articles to be seen there, I should have
experienced a decided feeling of repulsion, so pronounced was the
contrast between this poverty-stricken interior and the polished
bearing of its owner. He, I am sure, could have shown no more
elevated manners if he had been doing the honors of a palace. The
organ, with the marks of home construction upon it, was the only
object visible which spoke of luxury or even comfort.

But enough of these possibly uninteresting details. I did not dwell
on them myself, except in a vague way and while waiting for him to
open the conversation. This he did as soon as he saw that I had no
intention of speaking first.

"And did you find any one in the old house?" he asked.

Keeping him well under my eye, I replied with intentional brusqueness:

"She has gone there once too often!"

The stare he gave me was that of an actor who feels that some
expression of surprise is expected from him.

"She?" he repeated. "Whom can you possibly mean by she?"

The surprise I expressed at this bold attempt at ingenuousness was
better simulated than his, I hope.

"You don't know!" I exclaimed. "Can you live directly opposite a
place of such remarkable associations and not interest yourself in
who goes in and out of its deserted doors?"

"I don't sit in my front window," he peevishly returned.

I let my eye roam toward a chair standing suspiciously near the
very window he had designated.

"But you saw the light?" I suggested.

"I saw that from the door-step when I went out to give Rudge his
usual five minutes' breathing spell on the stoop. But you have not
answered my question; whom do you mean by she?"

"Veronica Jeffrey," I replied. "She who was Veronica Moore. She
has visited this haunted house of hers for the last time."

"Last time!" Either he could not or would not understand me.

"What has happened to my niece?" he cried, rising with an energy
that displaced the great dog and sent him, with hanging head and
trailing tail, to his own special sleeping-place under the table.
"Has she run upon a ghost in those dismal apartments? You interest
me gr