grave with my dear sister, but I thought it would be unchristian--"

"We need not go over all that ground once more, surely," interrupted Mr.
Craven. "I have heard your opinions concerning Mr. Elmsdale frequently
expressed ere now. That which I never did hear, however, until it proved
too late, was the fact of Helena having fancied she saw her father after
his death."

"And what good would it have done you, if I had repeated all the child's
foolish notions?"

"This, that I should not have tried to let a house believed by the owner
herself to be uninhabitable."

"And so you would have kept us without bread to put in our mouths, or a
roof over our heads."

"I should have asked you to do at first what I must ask you to do at
last. If you decline to sell the place, or let it unfurnished, on a long
lease, to some one willing to take it, spite of its bad character, I
must say the house will never again be let through my instrumentality,
and I must beg you to advertise River Hall yourself, or place it in the
hands of an agent."

"Do you mean to say, William Craven," asked Miss Blake, solemnly, "that
you believe that house to be haunted?"

"I do not," he answered. "I do not believe in ghosts, but I believe the
place has somehow got a bad name--perhaps through Helena's fancies, and
that people imagine it is haunted, and get frightened probably at sight