Lucy Harding by Mary Jane Holmes

It was a boarding house, kept by a Mrs. Browne, an English woman, who had seen better days, as she constantly reminded her boarders, whom she preferred to call guests. She was particular to impress upon her guests that she spelled her name with a final "e. " That was more aristocratic! Many of her boarders were away, and for this reason, perhaps, I was offered as a sitting room the one where madame had received us and we had played whist with Sophie. I could almost have sworn that some of the furniture was the same, especially the chair in which madame had sat, clutching the arms so tightly, with a look of terror on her face which I could see so plainly, and a kind of creepy feeling came over me, as if the place were haunted.

"Yes, this is very nice," I said; "but have you no other rooms I can look at?"