leasantness down South, including six months in Libby, and after ten
years of fighting the bad Indians on the plains, he wasn't likely to be
much frightened by a ghost. Well, Eliphalet and the officer sat out on
the porch all the evening smoking and talking over points in military
law. A little after twelve o'clock, just as they began to think it was
about time to turn in, they heard the most ghastly noise in the house.
It wasn't a shriek, or a howl, or a yell, or anything they could put a
name to. It was an indeterminate, inexplicable shiver and shudder of
sound, which went wailing out of the window. The officer had been at
Cold Harbor, but he felt himself getting colder this time. Eliphalet
knew it was the ghost who haunted the house. As this weird sound died
away, it was followed by another, sharp, short, blood-curdling in its
intensity. Something in this cry seemed familiar to Eliphalet, and he
felt sure that it proceeded from the family ghost, the warning wraith
of the Duncans."

"Do I understand you to intimate that both ghosts were there together?"
inquired the Duchess anxiously.

"Both of them were there," answered Uncle Larry. "You see, one of them
belonged to the house and had to be there all the time, and the other
was attached to the person of Baron Duncan, and had to follow him
there; wherever he was there was the ghost also. But Eliphalet, he had
scarcely time to think this out when he heard both sounds again, not
one after another, but both together, and something told him--some sort
of an instinct he had--that those two ghosts didn't agree, didn't get
on together, didn't exactly hit it off; in fact, that they were
quarreling."

"Quarreling ghosts! Well, I never!" was Baby Van Rensselaer's remark.

"It is a blessed thing to see ghosts dwell together in unity," said
Dear Jones.

And the Duchess added, "It would certainly be setting a better
example."

"You know," resumed Uncle Larry, "that two waves of light or of sound
may interfere and produce darkness or silence. So it was with these
rival spooks. They interfered, but they did not produce silence or
darkness. On the contrary, as soon as Eliphalet and the officer went
into the house, there began at once a series of spiritualistic
manifestations, a regular dark seance. A tambourine was played upon, a
bell was rung, and a flaming banjo went singing around the room."

"Where did they get the banjo?" asked Dear Jones sceptically.

"I don't know. Ma