HISTORIC GHOSTS AND GHOST HUNTERS

"If you are honest folk," interrupted the[Pg 84] lady, with an enchanting smile, "we ask no more."

Her husband checked her with a gesture and a look that was not lost on the now all-observing clerk, though it was long before he understood its significance.

"We are willing to pay a reasonable charge, and shall require only a bed-room and a sitting-room. If possible, we should prefer to be where there are no other lodgers."

"In that case," responded the clerk, with an eagerness he could scarcely veil, "I can accommodate you in my own house. It is simple but commodious, and I can answer that my wife will deal fairly by you."

"What think you, Fanny?" asked the man, turning to his wife.

"We can at least go and see."

This they immediately did, and to Clerk Parsons's joy decided to make their home with him. Nor did their coming gladden the clerk alone. His wife and children, two little girls of nine and ten, from the moment they saw the "beautiful lady" conceived a warm attachment for her. Her geniality, her kindliness, her manifest love for her husband, appealed to their sympathies, as did the sadness which[Pg 85] from time to time clouded her face. If, like Parsons himself, they soon became convinced that she and her husband shared some momentous secret, they could not bring themselves to believe that it involved her in wrongdoing. For the husband too they entertained the friendliest feelings. He was of a blunt, outspoken disposition and perhaps a trifle quick tempered, but he was frank and liberal and sincerely devoted to his wife. For all in the household, therefore, the days passed pleasantly; and when Mrs. Parsons one fine spring morning discovered her fair guest in tears she felt that time had established between them relations sufficiently confidential to warrant her motherly intervention.

"Come, my dear," said she, "I have long seen that something is troubling you. Tell me what it is, that I may be able to comfort, perhaps aid you."

"It is nothing, good Mrs. Parsons, nothing. I am very foolish. I was thinking of what would become of me if anything should happen to my husband."

"Dear, dear! and nothing will. But you could then turn to your relatives."

"I have no relatives."

[Pg 86]

"What, my dear, are they all dead?"

"No," in a solemn tone, "but I am dead to them."