GHOSTS. 121 



and somehow their old love sprang up again quite fresh, 

 and he did not go away, and they settled down into a 

 happy sort of life. They're living in the old house now. 

 It's Alice's, for the old man left it to her and not to Wal- 

 ter. He'd be glad to see you, sir. It isn't often he 

 hears from his old friends in the city. She's my cousin, 

 Alice is. Sam, why don't you walk down to the farm 

 and see Walter ? It'll do him good, for he's getting old 

 and growing stiff. Sam, you're not afraid of ghosts ?" 



" No, no, I thank you. I'm too content with your hos- 

 pitality to go away from it to-night," I said, in reply to 

 Sam's proffer of an escort for the call. But I noticed 

 that it was the allusion to ghosts that had started him 

 out of his easy seat, and I looked for an explanation. 



" It's not strange," said my hostess, " that superstitious 

 people should have made a ghost story out of the curious 

 life and death of the old man and his grandson. But 

 for a man six feet high and well educated as Sam is, I 

 call it absurd." 



" Sam believes it ?" 



" Sam declares he saw them. The people used to say 

 they two haunted the side of the brook. Sam goes fish- 

 ing for trout sometimes of an evening down the hollow, 

 and he declares he saw them one night, the tall old man 

 and the little boy, moving along in the edge of the bushes 

 and looking and pointing toward the old house. But as 

 to its being ghosts he saw I never believed it, for I al- 

 ways thought the ghosts were Tim Stevens and his boy 

 on their way to steal Alice Brand's chickens. She gen- 

 erallv misses some about the time the ghosts are around." 



