“It will be some trouble to find a new place,” suggested Miss Faithful meekly, “and we can afford it, I suppose.”

“I don’t care if we can afford it a dozen times over,” said her sister, with increased decision.  “I won’t be imposed upon.  If I’ve got either to drive or be driven, I’d rather drive.”

“Of course,” said Miss Faithful, who had never driven any living creature in the whole course of her life.

“I saw Peter Phelps to-day,” said Miss Sophonisba, “and he says he’ll let us have the old house up on the hill for anything we like to give.”

Miss Faithful gave a little start:  “Would you like to live there, Sophonisba?”

“Why, it’s a good convenient situation, and plenty big enough for you and me and the cat.”

“But you know,” said Miss Faithful, timidly, “they have told such queer stories about it.”  “Stuff and nonsense!” said Miss Sophonisba.  “You don’t believe them, I hope?”

“No,” hesitated her sister, “but then one remembers them, you know.  Widow Eldridge always said she saw old Doctor Haywood there.”

“Stuff and nonsense!” said Miss Sophonisba again.  “You know perfectly well you couldn’t trust a word she said about anything.”

“Oh, Sophonisba, she’s dead!” said Miss Faithful, shocked.

“I can’t help that, child.  It don’t hinder her having told fibs all her lifetime.”

“Her husband died the next month.”

“Well, so he might anywhere.  My wonder is he lived as long as he did, considering.”

“And Mrs. Jones’s three children died there.”

“Well, and didn’t Mrs. Gardner lose her two and that brother of hers? and I never heard their place was haunted; and didn’t two die out of the Trueman house? and ever so many more all over town?  It was a dreadful sickly summer.”

“And Sarah Jane McClean was taken sick there with fever.”

“Well, they had dirt enough to account for anything.  Doctor Brown told me himself that they had a great heap of potatoes sprouted in the cellar, and there ain’t anything so bad as that.”

The last vestige of a ghost was demolished:  Miss Faithful had nothing more to say.

“It’s nigh twenty-five years since the old doctor went off,” said Miss Sophonisba.  “It ain’t very probable he’s alive now; and if he is, he won’t be very apt to come back:  and if he is dead, he certainly won’t.  If he did, I’d like to ask him why he never paid father that fifty dollars.  I saw Peter Phelps to-day, and he says he’ll fix the place all up for us if we’ll have it, but of course I wouldn’t say anything about it till I’d spoken to you.”

“Just as you please, Sophonisba,” said Miss Faithful.

“He says he’ll give us a bit of ground down on the flat for a garden, and let his man dig it up for us.  I went up and looked at the house.  It ain’t so much out of repair as you’d think.”

“Did you see the burnt spot on the floor?” asked Miss Faithful with some interest.