is seemed not only fair but brotherly. John pocketed his eight
hundred and fifty pounds, shook his creditor affectionately by the hand,
and hurried westward.

The marriage was celebrated with great pomp; and in the evening the
King, who had been shedding tears at intervals throughout the
ceremonies, accompanied his daughter to the haunted house. The Princess
was pale. John, on the contrary, who sat facing her father in the
state-coach, smiled with a cheerfulness which, under the circumstances,
seemed a trifle ill-bred. The wedding-guests followed in twenty-four
chariots. Their cards of invitation had said "Two to five-thirty p.m.,"
and it was now eight o'clock; but they could not resist the temptation
to see the last of "the poor dear thing," as they agreed to call the
bride.

The King sat silent during the drive; he was preparing his farewell
speech, which he meant to deliver in the porch. But arriving and
perceiving a crowd about it, and also, to his vast astonishment, a red
baize carpet on the perron, and a butler bowing in the doorway with two
footmen behind him, he coughed down his exordium, and led his daughter
into the hall amid showers of rice and confetti. The bridegroom
followed; and so did the wedding-guests, since no one opposed them.

The hall and staircase were decorated with palms and pot-plants, flags
and emblems of Illyria; and in the great drawing-room--which they
entered while John persuaded the King to a seat--they found many rows of
morocco-covered chairs, a miniature stage with a drop representing the
play-scene in _Hamlet_, a row of footlights, a boudoir-grand piano, and
a man seated at the keyboard whom they recognised as a performer in much
demand at suburban dances.

The company had scarcely seated itself, before a strange light began to
illuminate that end of the room at which the stage stood, and
immediately the curtain rose to the overture of M. Offenbach's _Orphee
aux Enfers_, the pianist continuing with great spirit until a round of
applause greeted the entrance of the two spectral performers.

Its effect upon them was in the highest degree disconcerting. They set
down the coffin, and, after a brief and hurried conference in an
undertone, the black-mustachioed ghost advanced to the footlights,
singled out John from the audience, and with a terrific scowl demanded
to know the reason of this extraordinary gathering.

"Come, come, my dear sir," answered John, "our contract, if