Simon said they
said he was a great hand to joke."
"Oh, well," said Mrs. Emerson, "it is a beautiful house, and maybe
there isn't anything in those stories. It never seemed to me they
came very straight anyway. I never took much stock in them. All I
thought was--if his wife was nervous."
"Nothing in creation would hire me to go into a house that I'd ever
heard a word against of that kind," declared Mrs. Meserve with
emphasis. "I wouldn't go into that house if they would give me the
rent. I've seen enough of haunted houses to last me as long as I
live."
Mrs. Emerson's face acquired the expression of a hunting hound.
"Have you?" she asked in an intense whisper.
"Yes, I have. I don't want any more of it."
"Before you came here?"
"Yes; before I was married--when I was quite a girl."
Mrs. Meserve had not married young. Mrs. Emerson had mental
calculations when she heard that.
"Did you really live in a house that was--" she whispered
fearfully.
Mrs. Meserve nodded solemnly.
"Did you really ever--see--anything--"
Mrs. Meserve nodded.
"You didn't see anything that did you any harm?"
"No, I didn't see anything that did me harm looking at it in one
way, but it don't do anybody in this world any good to see things
that haven't any business to be seen in it.
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