"The very devil is in this business," said Horace. "The servants are getting scared out of their wits.
"They all sleep in the old part of the house, you know, and there isn't one of them who hasn't some story to tell of what goes on there in the night.
"Some of these yarns are the old-fashioned business about sighs and groans, and doors opening and shutting without anybody to open and shut them.
"But under it all I must say that there seems to be a basis of fact. There's John Gilder, the coachman. You've seen him, Does he look like a man who can be scared easily?"
"I should say not," laughed Nick. "He looks to me like a Yankee horse-trader, who is too intimate with the devil and his ways to be at all alarmed about them."
"Just so. Well, John Gilder came to me to-day, and told me just as calmly as I'd tell you the time of day, that he'd seen the ghost of Miss Lavina Richmond. He saw her right in this room where we are now."
They had gone to the large dining-hall in the old mansion. Horace sometimes used it as a smoking-room, but otherwise it was seldom visited, except when the house was full of guests and all the old part was thrown open.
It was a long and high room, finished in dark wood, and decorated with moldering portraits in the worst possible style of art.
At one end was a gigantic fire-place, which was closed by a screen of boards.
"He told me," continued Horace, "that he was passing through here late last night—near midnight, he said—and that he saw Lavina Richmond standing just about where you stand now.