|
Main
- books.jibble.org
My Books
- IRC Hacks
Misc. Articles
- Meaning of Jibble
- M4 Su Doku
- Computer Scrapbooking
- Setting up Java
- Bootable Java
- Cookies in Java
- Dynamic Graphs
- Social Shakespeare
External Links
- Paul Mutton
- Jibble Photo Gallery
- Jibble Forums
- Google Landmarks
- Jibble Shop
- Free Books
- Intershot Ltd
|
books.jibble.org
Previous Page
| Next Page
Page 56
"Yes, there is; you can't cheat me," replied Mrs. Emerson.
"Now, how do you know?"
"By the way you look."
Mrs. Meserve laughed consciously and rather vainly.
"Well, Simon says my face is so expressive I can't hide anything
more than five minutes no matter how hard I try," said she. "Well,
there is some news. Simon came home with it this noon. He heard
it in South Dayton. He had some business over there this morning.
The old Sargent place is let."
Mrs. Emerson dropped her sewing and stared.
"You don't say so!"
"Yes, it is."
"Who to?"
"Why, some folks from Boston that moved to South Dayton last year.
They haven't been satisfied with the house they had there--it
wasn't large enough. The man has got considerable property and can
afford to live pretty well. He's got a wife and his unmarried
sister in the family. The sister's got money, too. He does
business in Boston and it's just as easy to get to Boston from here
as from South Dayton, and so they're coming here. You know the old
Sargent house is a splendid place."
"Yes, it's the handsomest house in town, but--"
"Oh, Simon said they told him about that and he just laughed. Said
he wasn't afraid and neither was his wife and sister. Said he'd
risk ghosts rather than little tucked-up sleeping-rooms without any
sun, like they've had in the Dayton house. Said he'd rather risk
SEEING ghosts, than risk being ghosts themselves. Simon said they
said he was a great hand to joke."
"Oh, well," said Mrs. Emerson, "it is a beautiful house, and maybe
there isn't anything in those stories. It never seemed to me they
came very straight anyway. I never took much stock in them. All I
thought was--if his wife was nervous."
"Nothing in creation would hire me to go into a house that I'd ever
heard a word against of that kind," declared Mrs. Meserve with
emphasis. "I wouldn't go into that house if they would give me the
rent. I've seen enough of haunted houses to last me as long as I
live."
Mrs. Emerson's face acquired the expression of a hunting hound.
"Have you?" she asked in an intense whisper.
"Yes, I have. I don't want any more of it."
"Before you came here?"
"Yes; before I was married--when I was quite a girl."
Mrs. Meserve had not married young. Mrs. Emerson had mental
calculations when she heard that.
"Did you really live in a house that was--" she whispered
fearfully.
Mrs. Meserve nodded solemnly.
"Did you really ever--see--anything--"
Mrs. Meserve nodded.
"You didn't see anything that did you any harm?"
"No, I didn't see anything that did me harm looking at it in one
way, but it don't do anybody in this world any good to see things
that haven't any business to be seen in it. You never get over
it."
Previous Page
| Next Page
|
|