Mineral Point tribune. (Mineral Point, Wis.) 1869-1938, 1889-09-26

the suspicious stains on the staircase
that lovely veslibule with the coiored
glass sky-light! And, oh, Chart, look
out Of this window. Do YOU see those
white mists floating up from the lab
urnum walk down there? Exactly
like gliding, formless ghosts. Cook
tells me they come up every night,
like specters, from that very spot,
when the sun goes down. Do you
think, Chart, that murder could pos
sibly have been committed there?"
II think" Charley Fontaine absent
IL answered, "that the drainage Oh the
place must be horribly bad, aud we
shall all have malaria unless | tele-
graph TO Sutton to send up some drain
tiles at once"
"But the place is full of such deli
cious tall ferns and water lilies" plead
cd Aunt Valencia.
"Haug the ferns and water liliesm
said her nephew. you'll have to con-
tent Yourself with indoor ghosts, aunt
| can t stand a low pool like that under
my very window"
Aunt Valencia sighed, but Charley
was inexorable, and within a week the
plumbers men were at worG, hound
ing the white, floating mist-specters
from their fragrant Businesses with no
more romantic implements than pick
axes and drain-tles. She aud her
nephew had come down 10 superinteud
the operations one evening, when Il
laborer came toward them, touching
his frowsy hat
please. EUR" said he, "ere's what
| found under the roots O that big
willer tree. 1t is yum tort of box"
"The ghost!' whispered Aunt Va
lencia, giving her nephew's arm an
excrucating pinch. Open it, Chart
do! See, it's almost rusted through
1t was a box of papers, widowed.
time-staned, saturated through and
through with an earthly smell-old
lovc-letters addressed to Emily Sea-
cliff. afterward Emily Dart, the mother
of Diana; apparently valueless receipts
and memorandums; few manuscript
poems; soiled glove, and a French
bon-bon case, into which was crumpled
up an oblong piece OF legal paper-a
deed of gift from old James Thorpe to
Emily Dart, and her heirs, and assigns
forever, of Valleythorpe. and all its
broad acres.
Charley turned to Aunt Valencia
with wildly scintillating eyes and pale
cheeks.
Aunt" he said, "you were right.
1t was a ghost, and it has rendered up
It's message from tho spirit land. In
one of her troubled brain-fits Mrs.
Dart must have hidden away these pa
pers and forgotten to disclose their
whereabouts to any living soul. Diana
was right, also. Valleytnorpe is hers,
and | have no more title TO it than
yonder farm boy in the highroad.n
Sand Rufus Miner, of whom you
bought itP" gasped tue old lady.
"He had no right to sell what was
not his. This deed of gift is dated
seven years later than the will under
which he inherited the place. He will
have to refund me the purchase money
of COURSE
''And that black-eyed, solemn-faced
girl at old Moneypenny's is the heiress
of ValleytLarpe?"
Undoubtedly"
How delightfully."- romanticln lisned
Aunt Valencia.
Diana Dart was feeding the little
yellow goslings in the early sunshine
of the morrow morning at the back
kitchen door of the Moneypenny farm
house when Charley Fontaino came
along the winding foot-path. She
looked up with "A sudden start.
"You have something to tell mo-"
she cried; 81 see it in your eyes
yes, - said he. "Will you have it
all at onceP You are an heiress-
and | am to be turned out Of Valley
thorpe"
And then he related all the particu-
lars.
Am TO goP" he said, quietly.
Diana's shadowy, black-lashed eyes
followed the little goslngs as they
vanished like balls of downy gold into
the tall southern-wood bushes along
the picket fence.
mo" said she. "Why should you
goP Yalleythorpe is your own?"
mo, Diana; it is yours
"What is mine is yours also" muir
INJURED Diana, in a still lower voice,
tiff you will take it.
"Diana-my own darlingl But you
would not take it from me, y
But whispered Diana, "can't you
see that this is quite ditferent2'
Aud she burst into shower of happy
tears, with her face hidden against his
breast"
II do love you" she eobbed, 81 do
love you! And have loved You all
along, only-only | was too proud to
own it,
So Mr.. Fontaiue staid on at Yelley-
thorpe after all, and Aunt Valencia
persists to this day that there was a
genuine ghost in the laburnum walk.
And il has never come back. poor
thing said she; because it has de-
livored its message from the other
world
because l have had the swampy
hole thoroughly drained" says Fon-
tame, the iconoclast.
'.All the same. chirps Aunt Valcn-
cia, 'you must own that the whole &C.
currcuce is delightfully."- romantic
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