"

"My name is John Randolph," explained the old gentleman, with a fine
stateliness. "My grandchild and I have been living in this deserted
house because we had no other home in the world."

"I knew it!" announced Miss Betsey. "Isn't it just like John Randolph!
Would rather bury himself alive than let his friends take care of him.
Southern pride!" sniffed Miss Betsey. "I call it Southern foolishness."

"Madam," answered Mr. Randolph coldly, "I have no friends. I can not see
that I have done wrong to any one by hiding away in this old place, that
was once the property of my friends. If people have thought of me as a
ghost, and I have tried to encourage them in the idea, well, lives that
are finished and have no place in the world are but ghosts of the
unhappy past."

"Nonsense!" said Miss Betsey vigorously, her black eyes snapping,
though she felt a curious lump in her throat. "You were always a
sentimentalist, John Randolph. But you can't live on memories. You
still are obliged to eat and to breathe God's fresh air. How do you
do it?"

If the broken old man wondered why Miss Betsey Taylor took such an
interest in his affairs, he was too courteous to show it.

"An old colored woman, 'Mammy Ellen,' who was a girl in our family when
I was a young man, has not forgotten us. She brings us each day such
food as she can procure. As for air"--the old man hesitated--"we do not
go out in the daytime. I prefer that the people of the neighborhood
should think of me as dead. But at night my little grand-daughter and I
walk about over the old place."

Madge, Phil and David gasped involuntarily. They had been silent and
amazed listeners to the dialogue between the two old people. Now the
thought of a girl younger than themselves being shut up all day in this
dreadful house, and only being allowed to go out-of-doors at night was
too dreadful to contemplate.

"Oh, but surely you can't keep your little grand-daughter shut away from
the daylight!" exclaimed impetuous Madge, her face alive with sympathy
as she gazed at the thin little form on the bed.

"Daylight and darkness are as one to my little girl," the old gentleman
answered quietly, "she is blind."

Madge shivered. Phil went over to the bed and patted the girl's hand
softly. But they both longed, with all their hearts, to get away from
this house of tragedy. It was strange that Miss Betsey did not offer to
go and leave the old man and child to their privacy.

Miss Bet