“I’ll have to be pretty much alone, won’t I?” Mrs. Morris asked.
“Yes, but you will certainly have no intruders.”
“Oh, well, I ain’t no coward, anyway. How long will you stay there?”
“I really cannot tell, perhaps all winter.”
“And we must be all ready to start the day after to-morrow, must we?”
“Yes,” said Blanche, as she left the room.
“I don’t jest like the idea of goin’,” said Mrs. Morris to herself, as the door closed after Miss Elsworth, “for breakin’ that air glass ain’t no sign o’ good luck, and I know it. It jest seems to me as though something was goin’ to happen, and I believe I’ll have the blues till another glass comes into the house.”
The house which Blanche Elsworth had chosen was one which very few having fine taste would select. It was a large old-fashioned Gothic building that looked as though it could not stand a hard rain, or a strong wind. It stood near a rocky slope, and beside its pebbly walks were the remains of quaint looking flower beds. It had once been the home of a wealthy farmer, who, as prosperity continued, built a new and more commodious residence a mile away on the hill. His home there was lovely, and nothing that wealth could purchase was lacking. The old house had not been used for a number of years. Some of the blinds were swinging loosely while others were firmly closed, and the fastenings rusted in their sockets. The well curb was covered with bright green moss, and along the half leaning porch clung masses of rose bushes, which looked as though they had never known the pruner’s knife, each branch running hither and thither at will. The house stood at the foot of a high, sloping hill, and but a few yards away in the ravine ran a clear little brook that danced down over the rocks, making music as it went.
“Well, it does beat all, Miss Elsworth, what funny taste you’ve got,” said Mrs. Morris, the day after their arrival at Roxbury, “to get such an old spooky lookin’ 197 place as this. Why, it looks as though it was built on purpose for rats and ghosts, and I’ll bet a cent we’ll find both here afore we leave. Mercy, jest look at that air blind; it jest hangs by one hinge.”