"Do you know," I said, "that this house bears the reputation of
being haunted?"
"I have heard people say it is, sir," she answered.
"And do you know that servants will not stay in it--that tenants will
not occupy it?"
"I have heard so, sir," she answered once again.
"Then what do you mean by offering to come?" I inquired.
She looked up into my face, and I saw the tears come softly stealing
into her eyes, and her mouth began to pucker, ere, drooping her head,
she replied:
"Sir, just three months ago, come the twentieth, I was a happy woman. I
had a good husband and a tidy home. There was not a lady in the land I
would have changed places with. But that night, my man, coming home in a
fog, fell into the river and was drowned. It was a week before they
found him, and all the time--while I had been hoping to hear his step
every minute in the day--I was a widow."
"Poor soul!" I said, involuntarily.
"Well, sir, when a man goes, all goes. I have done my best, but still I
have not been able to feed my children--his children--properly, and the
sight of their poor pinched faces breaks my heart, it do, sir," and she
burst out sobbing.
"And so, I suppose," I remarked, "you thought you would face this house
rather than poverty?"
"Yes, sir.
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