“‘There now, Arthur!’ Mrs. Hartley exclaimed, the angry expression in her eyes being replaced by a mixture of triumph and curiosity--‘There now! didn’t I tell you all along something was wrong with the place?’
“‘Drains, I suppose!’ her husband said mournfully, ‘drains or rats!--and I do hate moving.’
“‘Neither one nor the other!’ the Rev. Silas whispered. ‘No! the house is haunted.’
“At this announcement Mrs. Hartley gave a slight ejaculation of terror--an ejaculation which, reduced to its constituent parts, might be found to consist of affectation, fear, and no small amount of pleasure, the latter engendered by the glamour of something both ENIGMATICAL and FASHIONABLE.
“‘What’s it haunted by? Teapots?’ Mr. Hartley muttered with a contemptuous movement of his mouth. ‘If it’s not haunted by teapots now, it will be some day, for that new maid of yours, my dear, is always breaking them. She has smashed two since yesterday, and if you examine this one closely you will observe that the spout is already chipped.’
“Mrs. Hartley puckered her dainty brows into the most alarming frown.
“‘Really, Arthur! how mundane you are,’ she remarked loftily; then, turning to Mr. Wetherby, ‘My husband is, as you see, one of those solid individuals who believes in nothing till he sees it.’
“‘And not always then,’ Arthur murmured, gazing intently at the parson as the latter was about to pour the contents of the cream-jug into his cup. ‘Everything that appears to the eye white and sticky is not cream! Some animals have brains, even pigs--and some dairymen are frauds--most of them!’
“‘Good gracious me!’ the Rev. Silas cried hastily replacing the jug. ‘You surely don’t mean to insinuate----’
“‘He doesn’t mean anything!’ Mrs. Hartley interrupted with considerable impatience, ‘he is unusually silly this afternoon--so pray excuse him!’ and--with the regular six-months-in-Paris accent--‘revenons à nos moutons, s’il vous plait. I am anxious to hear about the ghost.’
“Mr. Wetherby looked a trifle sulky; he fought shy of sceptics, and he no longer enjoyed his tea.
“‘Now, mind I don’t ask you to believe me!’ he began, ‘although there are plenty of people in this parish who will confirm what I say; but eighty, or a hundred or so years ago, a son poisoned his father in this very house.