"I don't think I shall bother myself about them!" I went gaily out.
It did seem very puerile to me, save as it might possibly account in some remote way for Mrs.Packard's peculiar mental condition.
Up-stairs I found Ellen.

She was in a talkative mood, and this time I humored her till she had told me all she knew about the house and its ghostly traditions.

This all had come from a servant, a nurse who had lived in the house before.

Ellen herself, like the butler, Nixon, had had no personal experiences to relate, though the amount of extra wages she received had quite prepared her for them.

Her story, or rather the nurse's story, was to the following effect.
The house had been built and afterward inhabited for a term of years by one of the city fathers, a well-known and still widely remembered merchant.