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 would have ended flippantly, but for the grave set of her features.

“I wonder who will live here?” she said. “The owner is just dead. They say it is an awful house, full of ghosts. Of course one is not afraid now”—the sunlight lay golden and soft on the dusty parquet of the floor—“but at night, when the wind wails, and the doors creak, and the things rustle, oh, it must be awful!”

“I hear the house has been left to two people, or rather one is to have the house, and the other a sum of money,” said I. “It’s a beautiful house, full of beautiful things, but I should think at least one of the heirs would rather have the money.”

“Oh yes, I should think so. I wonder whether the heirs know about the ghost? The lights can be seen from the inn, you know, at twelve o’clock, and they see the ghost in white at the window.”

“Never the black one?”

“Oh yes, I suppose so.”

“The ghosts don’t appear together?”

“No.”

“I suppose,” said I, “whoever it is that manages such things knows that the poor