, "Yes, stupid old visitors and parents!"

"Excuse me!" he wrote; "I meant politicians."

She replied in the same spirit as before, "I think politicians are
divine!"

Duff Salter looked a little wondering out of those calm gray eyes and
his strong, yet benevolent Scotch-Irish countenance. Podge, who now
talked freely with Agnes in his presence, said confidently:

"I believe I can tantalize this good old granny by giving him doubts
about me! I am real bad, Aggy; you know that! It is no story to tell
it!"

"Oh! we are both bad enough to try to improve," exclaimed Agnes
absently.

"Jericho! Jericho! Jericho!" sneezed Duff Salter.

He came down every evening, and began respectfully to bow to Agnes and
to smile on Podge, and then stretched his feet out to the ottoman, drew
his tablets up to the small table and proceeded to write. They hallooed
into his ear once or twice, but he said he was deaf as a mill-stone, and
might be cursed to his face and wouldn't understand it. They had formed
a pleasing opinion of him, not unmixed with curiosity, when one night he
wrote on the back of a piece of paper:

"Have you any idea who wrote this anonymous note to me?"

Podge Byerly took the note and found in a woman's handwriting these
words:

"Mr. Duff Salter, I suppose you know where you are. Your hostesses
are very insinuating and artful--and what else, _you can find out_!
One man has been murdered in that family; another has disappeared.
They say in Kensington the house of Zane is haunted.

"A WARNER."

Podge read the note, and her tears dropped upon it. He moved forward as
if to speak to her, but correcting himself hastily, he wrote upon the
tablets:

"Not even a suspicious person is affected the least by an anonymous
letter. I only keep it that possibly I may detect the sender!"

CHAPTER IV.

A SUITOR.

Duff Salter and the ladies were sitting in the back parlor one evening
following the events just related, when the door-bell rang, and Podge
Byerly went to see who was there. She soon returned and closed the door
of the front parlor, leaving a little crack, by accident, and lighted
the gas there.

"Aggy," whispered Podge, coming in, "there's Mr. Calvin Van de Lear, our
future minister. He's elegantly dressed, and has a nosegay in his hand."

"Can't you entertain him, dear?"

"I would be glad enough, but he asked in a very decided way for you."

"For me?"

Agnes looked distre