The Project Gutenberg eBook, The Room with the Tassels, by Carolyn Wells

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Title: The Room with the Tassels

Author: Carolyn Wells

Release Date: June 17, 2014 [eBook #46008]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

***START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE ROOM WITH THE TASSELS***

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THE ROOM WITH
THE TASSELS

BY
CAROLYN WELLS
Author of “The Bride of a Moment,”
“Faulkner’s Folly,” etc.

NEW YORK
GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY

Copyright, 1918,
By George H. Doran Company
Printed in the United States of America

WITH LOVE AND HOMAGE
This Book is Dedicated
TO
HATTIE BELLE JOHNSTON

CONTENTS

CHAPTER PAGE

I. Wanted: A Haunted House 11

II. The Old Montgomery Place 26

III. Black Aspens 41

IV. The Story of the House 56

V. Eve’s Experience 71

VI. At Four O’clock 86

VII. The Mystery 101

VIII. By What Means 117

IX. Conflicting Theories 131

X. Was It Supernatural? 146

XI. The Heir Speaks Out 161

XII. The Professor’s Experience 176

XIII. Pennington Wise 192

XIV. Zizi 207

XV. Tracy’s Story 222

XVI. What Happened to Zizi 237

XVII. Stebbins Owns Up 252

XVIII. Another Confession 267

THE ROOM
WITH THE TASSELS

CHAPTER I
Wanted: A Haunted House

“But I know it’s so,—for Mrs. Fairbanks saw it herself,—and heard it, too!”

The air of finality in the gaze levelled at Braye defied contradiction, so he merely smiled at the girl who was doing the talking. But, talking or silent, Eve Carnforth was well worth smiling at. Her red hair was of that thin, silky, flat-lying sort, that spells temper, but looks lovely, and her white, delicate skin,—perhaps the least bit hand-painted,—showed temperament while her eyes, of the colour called beryl,—whatever that is,—showed all sorts of things.

Then from her canna-hued lips fell more wisdom. “And Professor Hardwick believes it, too, and he’s——”

“A college professor,” broke in Landon, “don’t try to gild his refinement! But really, Eve, you mustn’t believe in spooks,—it isn’t done——”

“Oh, but it is! You’ve no idea how many people,—scientific and talented people,—are leaning toward spiritualism just now. Why, Sir Oliver Lodge says that after the war great and powerful assistance will be given by spirit helpers in matters of reconstruction and great problems of science.”

Milly Landon’s laugh rang out, and she politely clapped a little, fat hand over her mouth to stifle it.

Milly Landon was an inveterate giggler, but don’t let that prejudice you against her. She was the nicest, dearest dumpling of a little woman who ever giggled her way through life. And as hostess on this present Sunday afternoon occasion, she sat, one foot tucked under her, on the davenport in her long, narrow parlour, on one of New York’s East Seventieth streets.

It was a parlour like thousands of others in the city, and the quartette of people talking there were much like the people talking in those other parlours, that Sunday afternoon. Their only superiority lay in the fact that they constitute part of the personnel of this absorbing tale, and the other people do not.

Milly and her very satisfactory husband, Wynne Landon, were affably entertaining Rudolph Braye and the herein-before described Eve Carnforth, two pleasing callers, and the talk had turned on psychological matters and then, by inevitable stages, to the supernatural and