As overseer of the plantation, the Colonel paid him six hundred dollars a year, a little enough sum considering the work he did.

Rad had nothing in his own right; aside from his salary he was entirely dependent on his father, and it struck me as more than foolish for a young man who was contemplating marriage to throw away two months' earnings in a single game of poker.

The conviction crossed my mind that perhaps after all Polly was wise to delay.
I heard another rumor however which was graver than the poker affair; it was only a rumor, and when traced to its source turned out to be nothing more tangible than somebody's hazarded guess, but without the slightest cause the same suspicion had already presented itself to me.

And that was, that the ha'nt was a very flesh and blood woman.

Radnor was clearly in some sort of trouble; he was moody and irritable, so sharp with the farm hands that several of them left, and unusually taciturn with the Colonel and me.