l quality of canniness, so characteristic of the
Lowland Scot to which race they belonged. Mr. Whittingen had, for
years, conducted a grocery business in Jedburgh, twice filling the
honoured and coveted post of mayor, and when he at length retired into
private life, his friends (and it was astonishing how many friends he
had) shrewdly suspected that his pockets were not only well lined but
full to bursting. Acting on the advice of his wife and daughters, who
were keen on social distinction, he sent Ernest to Oxford,
conditionally that he should take Holy Orders in the Church of
England, whilst Harvey, who, when scarcely out of the petticoat stage,
displayed the regular Whittingen talent for business by covertly
helping himself to the sugar in his father's shop, and disposing of it
at strictly sale price to his sisters' cronies in the nursery, was
sent to one of those half preparatory and half finishing schools (of
course, for the sons of gentlemen only) at Edinburgh, where he was
kept till he was old enough to be articled to a prosperous,
exceedingly prosperous, firm of solicitors.

The girls, Ruth, Martha, and Mary, had likewise been highly educated,
that is to say, they had remained so many years at an English seminary
for young ladies, and had been given a final twelve months in France
and Germany to enable them to obtain "the correct accent."

At the time of the story they were as yet unmarried, and were awaiting
with the most laudable patience the advent of men of title. They were
delighted with their new home (which Ruth had persuaded her father to
christen "Donaldgowerie," after the house in a romantic novel she had
just been reading), and proud of their gilded premises and magnificent
tennis lawns; they had placed a gigantic and costly tray in the hall,
in confident assurance that it would speedily groan beneath the weight
of cards from all the gentry in Perthshire.

But please be it understood, that my one and only object in alluding
to these trifling details is to point out that the Whittingens, being
entirely engrossed in matters mundane, were the very last people in
the world to be termed superstitious, and although imaginative where
future husbands' calls and cards were concerned, prior to the events
about to be narrated had not an ounce of superstition in their
natures. Indeed, until then they had always smiled in a very
supercilious manner at even the smallest mention of a ghost.

September came, thei