do not know whether the place is to let or not."

"A good house?" This might have been interrogative, or uttered as an
assertion, but I took it as the former, and answered accordingly.

"Yes, a good house--a very good house, indeed," I said.

"It is often vacant, though," he said, with a light laugh.

"Through no fault of the house," I added.

"Oh! it is the fault of the tenants, is it?" he remarked, laughing once
more. "The owners, I should think, must be rather tired of their
property by this time."

"I do not know that," I replied. "They live in hope of finding a good
and sensible tenant willing to take it."

"And equally willing to keep it, eh?" he remarked. "Well, I, perhaps, am
not much of a judge in the matter, but I should say they will have to
wait a long time first."

"You know something about the house?" I said, interrogatively.

"Yes," he answered, "most people about here do, I fancy--but least said
soonest mended"; and as by this time we had reached the top of the lane,
he bade me a civil good-evening, and struck off in a westerly direction.

Though the light of the setting sun shone full in my face, and I had to
shade my eyes in order to enable me to see at all, moved by some feeling