"I'll ask Mr. Blake," began Diana. "Oh, here he comes now."
The carpenter was returning down the island preparing to take up his freight duties on the wharf. Diana accosted him and introduced him to Mrs. Lowell.
The latter shook hands with Matt, her radiant smile beaming, "I am glad to meet you, Mr. Blake," she said. "You seem to be Miss Wilbur's oracle. She is always quoting you, and I am rather curious about this farm up here. Why do they call it haunted?"
"Oh," said Blake, "let any place be left empty a few years, and windows get loose, and blinds bang, and it's called haunted."
"I suppose that is often true," said Mrs. Lowell. "It is an abandoned farm, then?"
"Yes, for many years."
"I don't know why I have never inspected it," said Diana, "when who knows but it is the very homestead for me?"
Matt Blake shook his head and smiled. "The old house is crumbling away. There is a part of it that'll keep the rain off, and there Mr. Gayne keeps his stuff."
"Stuff?" echoed Mrs. Lowell interrogatively.