“I was shocked, as you may believe, and quickly raised them, at which Miss Thankful told me their story, which I will now tell you.

“There were four of them originally, three sisters and one brother.  The brother early went West and disappeared out of their lives, and the third sister married.  This was years and years ago, when they were all young.  From this marriage sprang all their misfortune.  The nephew which this marriage introduced to their family became their bane as well as their delight.  From being a careless spendthrift boy he became a reckless, scheming man, adding extravagance to extravagance, till, to support him and meet his debts, these poor aunts gave up first their luxuries, then their home and finally their very livelihood.  Not that they acknowledged this.  The feeling they both cherished for him was more akin to infatuation than to ordinary family love.  They did not miss their luxuries, they did not mourn their home, they did not even mourn their privations; but they were broken-hearted and had been so for a long time, because they could no longer do for him as of old.  Shabby themselves, and evidently ill-nourished, they grieved not over their own changed lot, but over his.  They could not be reconciled to his lack of luxuries, much less to the difficulties in which he frequently found himself, who was made to ruffle it with the best and be the pride of their lives as he was the darling of their hearts.  All this the poor old things made apparent to me, but their story did not become really interesting till they began to speak of this house we are in, and of certain events which followed their removal to the ramshackle dwelling next door.  The sale of this portion of the property had relieved them from their debts, but they were otherwise penniless, and were just planning the renting of their rooms at prices which would barely serve to provide them with a scanty living, when there came a letter from their graceless nephew, asking for a large amount of money to save him from complete disgrace.  They had no money, and were in the midst of their sorrow and perplexity, when a carriage drove up to the door of this house and from it issued an old and very sick man, their long absent and almost forgotten brother.  He had come home to die, and when told his sisters’ circumstances, and how soon the house next door would be filled with lodgers, insisted upon having this place of his birth, which was empty at the time, opened for his use.  The owner, after long continued entreaties from the poor old sisters, finally consented to the arrangement.  A bed was made up in the library, and the old man laid on it.”

Mrs. Packard’s voice fell, and I cast her a humorous look.

“Were there ghosts in those days?” I lightly asked.