The house looks as if it was haunted, somehow." Mrs.Tadman laughed a shrill hard laugh, and rubbed her skinny hands with an air of satisfaction.
"You're not easy to please, Miss Carley," she said; "most folks think a deal of Wyncomb; for, you see, it's only them that live in a house as can know how dull it is; and as to the place being haunted, I never heard tell of anything of that kind.

The Whitelaws ain't the kind of people to come back to this world, unless they come to fetch their money, and then they'd come fast enough, I warrant.

I used to see a good deal of my uncle, John Whitelaw, when I was a girl, and never did a son take after his father closer than my cousin Stephen takes after him; just the same saving prudent ways, and just the same masterful temper, always kept under in that quiet way of his." As Ellen Carley showed herself profoundly indifferent to the lights and shades of Mr.Whitelaw's character, Mrs.Tadman did not pursue the subject, but with a gentle sigh led the way to another room, and so on from room to room, till they had explored all that floor of the house.
"There's the attics above; but you won't care to see _them_," she said.
"The shepherd and five other men sleep up there.

Stephen thinks it keeps them steadier sleeping under the same roof with their master; and he's able to ring them up of a morning, and to know when they go to their work.

It's wearying for me to have to get up and see to their breakfasts, but I can't trust Martha Holden to do that, or she'd let them eat us out of house and home.