Wesley Elliot took a step or two toward the winding stair, dimly seen through the gloom of the hall.
“Hold on, dominie, them stairs ain’t safe!” warned the Deacon. “They’ll mebbe want a little shoring up, before— Say, I wish—”
“I don’t care to go up now, really,” protested the girl. “It—it’s the location I like and—”
She glanced about the desolate place with a shiver. The air of the long-closed rooms was chilly, despite the warmth of the June day outside.
“I’ll tell you what,” said the deacon briskly. “You come right along down to the village with me, Miss Orr. It’s kind of close in here; the house is built so tight, there can’t no air git in. I tell you, them walls—”
He smote the one nearest him with a jocular palm. There followed the hollow sound of dropping plaster from behind the lath.
“Guess we’d better fix things up between us, so you won’t be noways disappointed in case that other party—” he added, with a crafty glance at the minister. “You see, he might turn up ’most any day.”
“Oh, yes!” exclaimed the girl, walking hurriedly to the door. “I—I should like to go at once.”
She turned and held out her hand to the minister with a smile.
“Thank you for coming,” she said. “I wanted you to see the house as it is now.”