"Oh, Sophonisba, she's dead!" said Miss Faithful, shocked.
"I can't help that, child. It don't hinder her having told fibs all her lifetime."
"Her husband died the next month."
"Well, so he might anywhere. My wonder is he lived as long as he did, considering."
"And Mrs. Jones's three children died there."
"Well, and didn't Mrs. Gardner lose her two and that brother of hers? and I never heard their place was haunted; and didn't two die out of the Trueman house? and ever so many more all over town? It was a dreadful sickly summer."
"And Sarah Jane McClean was taken sick there with fever."
"Well, they had dirt enough to account for anything. Doctor Brown told me himself that they had a great heap of potatoes sprouted in the cellar, and there ain't anything so bad as that."
The last vestige of a ghost was demolished: Miss Faithful had nothing more to say.
"It's nigh twenty-five years since the old doctor went off," said Miss Sophonisba. "It ain't very probable he's alive now; and if he is, he won't be very apt to come back: and if he is dead, he certainly won't. If he did, I'd like to ask him why he never paid father that fifty dollars. I saw Peter Phelps to-day, and he says he'll fix the place all up for us if we'll have it, but of course I wouldn't say anything about it till I'd spoken to you."