not
a ghost of any decided convictions object to such a collection as his
descendant had gathered in this gallery? Yonder idiot in silk and steel
had blunderingly and cruelly persecuted his kinsman in leather and steel
only a few panels distant. Would they care to meet here? And if their
human weaknesses had died with them, what would bring them here at all?
And if not THEM--who then? He stopped short. The door at the lower end
of the gallery had opened! Not stealthily, not noiselessly, but in an
ordinary fashion, and a number of figures, dressed in the habiliments of
a bygone age, came trooping in. They did not glide in nor float in, but
trampled in awkwardly, clumsily, and unfamiliarly, gaping about them as
they walked. At the head was apparently a steward in a kind of livery,
who stopped once or twice and seemed to be pointing out and explaining
certain objects in the room. A flash of indignant intelligence filled
the brain of the Barbarian! It seemed absurd!--impossible!--but it
was true! It was a holiday excursion party of ghosts, being shown over
Stukeley Castle by a ghostly Cicerone! And as his measured, monotonous
voice rose on the Christmas morning air, it could be heard that he was
actually showing off, not the antiquities of the Castle, but the MODERN
IMPROVEMENTS!

"This 'ere, gossips,"--the Barbarian instantly detected the fallacy of
all the so-called mediaeval jargon he had read,--"is the Helectric
Bell, which does away with our hold, hordinary 'orn blowin', and the
hattendant waitin' in the 'all for the usual 'Without there, who waits?'
which all of us was accustomed to in mortal flesh. You hobserve this
button. I press it so, and it instantly rings a bell in the kitchen
'all, and shows in fair letters the name of this 'ere gallery--as we
will see later. Will hany good dame or gaffer press the button? Will
YOU, mistress?" said the Cicerone to a giggling, kerchief-coifed lass.

"Oi soy, Maudlin!--look out--will yer!--It's the soime old gag as them
bloomin' knobs you ketched hold of when yer was 'ere las' Whitsuntide,"
called out the mediaeval 'Arry of the party.

"It is NOT the Galvanic-Magnetic machine in 'is lordship's library,"
said the Cicerone, severely, "which is a mere toy for infants, and
hold-fashioned. And we have 'ere a much later invention. I open this
little door, I turn this 'andle--called a switch--and, has you perceive,
the gallery is hinstantly hilluminated."

There was a hoarse cry of