If Effie herself would have been better pleased with the idea of such excellent company in the house, she at least said nothing about it. Her only remark on the subject was: “But, Mr. Brayton, somebody ought to warn you. Are you afraid of ghosts?” “Not much. Why?” “Why, the Wood’s mansion is said to be haunted. The ghosts never come in pleasant weather, but the first frost brings them back again.” “Spend their summers at the watering-places, do they?” said Brayton. “Very fashionable ghosts, I should say, these!” “Very, only they have sometimes scared away boarders for Mrs. Wood.” “Tell you what I’ll do if they trouble me,” said Brayton. “What is it?” asked Effie. “I’ll set Zeb Fuller and his boys after them.” “That would do,” laughed Effie, merrily. “I do believe if Zeb Fuller met a ghost he’d insist on shaking hands.” “He’s very much that kind of a boy,” said Brayton. “I’ve engaged him and Hy Allen and half-a-dozen more of the same class to assist me in keeping the Academy in order this fall and winter.” Effie opened her eyes, but she comprehended the strategy of the new teacher, and that was more than Mrs. Dryer or her husband could have done. The afternoon that Brayton moved his goods and chattels to the widow’s house, Mrs. Dryer remarked to the doctor: “You’ll have double responsibility this winter. I see clearly how it’ll be. Mr. Brayton lacks dignity. He’ll have no control, whatever. Those boys’ll ride right over him. I heard him speak to that Fuller boy to-day, and he actually touched his hat to him, just as if he’d been a trustee.” Dr. Dryer groaned, but he searched his mind in vain for a recollection of the occasion when George Brayton had exhibited that amount of reverence for the principal of the Academy. “I shall undoubtedly be compelled to exercise especial vigilance,” he calmly replied, “but I consider myself competent to confront the emergency.” Splendid words they were, and the longest that occurred to him at the moment, but his better-half, that is, his “third,” was hardly comforted, even while she admired. There were other houses in Ogleport which would gladly have opened their doors to such a boarder as George Brayton, but he was wise for so young a man, and most of them contained only too many of the things classed as “comforts of a home”--even sons and grown-up daughters. So he took Mrs. Dryer’s advice and decided to sojourn with the Widow Wood. Fat and active and fussy was the widow, bearing her three-score years lightly enough, though with a dim idea that she was the oldest inhabitant of Ogleport, and, by good rights, the most important person in the village. Old Judge Wood had been a great man in his day, at least in his own estimation. He had meant to found a fortune and a family, but had somehow failed to do either. He had, however, built the biggest and costliest house in all that region of country, and then had died before he had put the second coat of paint on it.