fter dinner Horace Richmond took Nick aside, for what he termed a
discussion of "this ghostly rot."

"The very devil is in this business," said Horace. "The servants are
getting scared out of their wits.

"They all sleep in the old part of the house, you know, and there isn't
one of them who hasn't some story to tell of what goes on there in the
night.

"Some of these yarns are the old-fashioned business about sighs and
groans, and doors opening and shutting without anybody to open and shut
them.

"But under it all I must say that there seems to be a basis of fact.
There's John Gilder, the coachman. You've seen him, Does he look like a
man who can be scared easily?"

"I should say not," laughed Nick. "He looks to me like a Yankee
horse-trader, who is too intimate with the devil and his ways to be at
all alarmed about them."

"Just so. Well, John Gilder came to me to-day, and told me just as
calmly as I'd tell you the time of day, that he'd seen the ghost of Miss
Lavina Richmond. He saw her right in this room where we are now."

They had gone to the large dining-hall in the old mansion. Horace
sometimes used it as a smoking-room, but otherwise it was seldom
visited, except when the house was full of guests and all the old part
was thrown open.

It was a long and high room, finished in dark wood, and decorated with
moldering portraits in the worst possible style of art.

At one end was a gigantic fire-place, which was closed by a screen of
boards.

"He told me," continued Horace, "that he was passing through here late
last night--near midnight, he said--and that he saw Lavina Richmond
standing just about where you stand now.

"He came in by that door, behind me, and she was directly facing him.
He says that he didn't move or yell, or do anything, but just stood
staring at her.

"She paid no attention whatever to him, but passed across the room and
went out by that other door, which opened as she approached and closed
after her of itself.

"Then he ran for his room. He claims that he wasn't scared--only a bit
nervous.

"You can believe that if you want to. I tell you that he was scared, so
that he won't get over it in a year.

"If it wasn't for that I might think he was lying; but when a man like
Gilder quietly invites the footman--whom he always hated--to take half
of his bed for a few weeks, it's a sure thing that he's seen something
out of the ordinary.

"And the footman, as I learn, was mighty gl