o my
pleading request as he bent and laid his cheek upon the lovelock.
"That curl ought to have opened my eyes when I sat and watched you
open yours day before yesterday morning," was the remark he added to
his cruel command that I stay and face my very dreadful and so very
much beloved Uncle, the General Robert.

"I am afraid," I answered as I clung to him with a trembling.

"Yes, I know you are afraid of him--or anything," laughed my beloved
Gouverneur Faulkner with a shake of my bare shoulders under his strong
hands. "But perhaps these papers I have in my pocket from Captain
Lasselles, who is at the Mansion getting rid of dust, will help you
out after the first explosion, which you will have to stand in a very
few minutes from now, if that hall clock is correct and I know the
General's habits as I think I do."

"Oh, let me ascend and get once again into my trousers!" I exclaimed
as I sought to leave the arms that again held me close.

"Never," said my Gouverneur Faulkner after another kiss upon the lace
on my breast. "You'll just wear this ball gown until you can get some
dimity, Madam, and don't you ever even mention to me--"

But just here an interruption arrived, and I sprang from the arms of
my Gouverneur Faulkner only in time to avoid being discovered therein.
My beloved Uncle, the General Robert, entered the door in a great
hurry, with that much frightened Bonbon following close at his heels.

"What's all this that fool nigger phoned about ghosts walking and--"
Then he stood very still in the spot upon which his feet were placed
and regarded me as I turned from the arms of my Gouverneur Faulkner
and faced him.

"My God, Governor, what has happened to my boy?" he asked, and his
fine old face was of a great whiteness and trembling. "Sam says he's
dead and the ghost--" and then came another pause in which all of the
persons present held for a long minute their breath.

Did I make excuses and explanations and pleadings to my beloved Uncle,
the General Robert, in such suffering over the death of that Robert? I
did not. I opened my strong young arms wide and took him into them
with a tenderness of such great force that it would of a necessity go
into his very heart.

"I am a wicked girl who has come to you in lies as a boy, my Uncle
Robert, but I have a love that is so great for you that I will be in
death if you do not accept of it from me," I said as I pressed my
cheek in its tears against his.

And fo