The Arkansaw traveler., 1888-02-11
THE SHADOW.
New York News.

to the premises. To be sure, the house is small, but then the rent is proportionally low. The furniture is old fashioned and scanty, but that makes no very great difference to me. can easily hire what I want from Sibbesport. Girls, what do you | think"
 Lucy Carr. Miss Lockland's eldest niece, hesitated little.
 "Isn't it rather dull, Aunt Patty?"
 "Can't expect high carnival in the country, my dear. We came here for Dotty's health, not for society,""
 Dotty herself-"short" for Dorothy -clung close to Aunt Patty's arm.
 "Don't you think the sea makes an awful roaring, Aunt Patty?" whis- pered she.
 'sIt is the nature of the sea, my dear. Here, you fellow with the key" to stunted, stout built man who was attending the party over the premises, "you may tell the agent lll take the place for one year."
 "Well, ma'am, just as you please" said Milo Renney, twisting his head mysteriously around. But it ain't every one as would care to take Shore Cottage"
 "Why not?" sharply demanded Miss Lockland.
 Renney twisted his head still more solemnly.
 '.Tm poor seafaring man, ma am, with my Twin to get" said he. "and it ain't for me to be a-runnin' down other folks property. But the truth is the truth, and I ain't one to see folks imposed upon. No, that l ain't"
 "Man alive! why don't you speak out and have done with it2" said Miss Lock, and, "What ails the property? Cellar damp?"
 "No'm. 'Tain't that"
 'Root leaky?"
 "Pretty to'able sound, so far's I know" grunted Renney.
 "Then what is there against the house?"
 "IIaunted, ma'am '" said the sailor, dropping his voice to sepulchral ca dence.
 sFiddIesticks! :" shrieked Miss Lock land. "Do you take me for baby, or nursery maid?"
 "Everv one'll tell you the same story, ma'am," doggedly persisted i Milo. "rhe man as built the cottage had two wives, savin' the young la- dies presence, ma'am. One of 'em he kept here and t'other one lived in great style in the city. And the one as lived here died awful sudden. Folks say sine was poisoned. They buried her down i'll the cemetery beyond them evergrcens-and she walks every moonlight night"
 "Walks, does she?" said Miss Lock land. "I'll make her walk livelier than ever she did before if l come across one Of her promenas!cs."
 "Ah, but you never seen ghost, ma aam."
 'Did you?" demanded Miss Lock land, turning sharply upon him. 'Many time, ma'am, at the full of the moon, when Eve been coming in with my fishing smack, futterin' past the empty windows, ma'am, till 1t made my blood run cold"
 "Then you haven't the common sense gave you credit for" said Miss Lockland.
 "And I ain't the only one as has seen the White Shadow, ma'am. There's old Ned Stapleton, ma'am--"
 "There, there," said Miss Lockland, imperatively silencing him. "I want no more of this sort of thing. My girls eyes are twice their regulation size already. Tell the agent exactly what said-that I'll take Shore Cot tage for year. As for the ghosts, they turn out when 1 turn in, or I'll know the reason why. And there's one indisputable advantage in ghosts they make rent cheap" And accordingly, just one week from that bright September afternoon, Miss Patty Lockland sat knitting by the twilight fire in the long, low ceiled drawing room of Shore Cottage, whose windows looked out upon the trembling waves, with a red crescent moon hanging low in the horizon.
 "This is what call snug," said Miss Patty, as Nora, the red-arIned maid of-all- work, brought in the tea tray.
 "Do you think so, aunt?" said Dotty, IshiveriDg little. "What strange noise that isl Pm sure some one is tapping at the windoww
 "It is only the trails of ivy growing around that north easement, my dear," said Aunt Patty, calmly. T must trim it tomorrow little. It's pic turesque, but inconvenient."
 "Please, ma'am,' said Nora, edging up closer to the table and the fire light, Ifs it true about the ghosts?" tits only a'pack of nonsense, Nora" said Miss LocklaDd, land you're goose for listening to It." "But that was dreadful noises about