ous of a tremulous
shivering in one corner of the room, and he remembered that he had heard
from that direction what sounded like a frightened sigh when he made the
first suggestion of the duel. Something told him that this was the
domiciliary ghost, and that it was badly scared. Then he was impressed
by a certain movement in the opposite corner of the room, as though the
titular ghost were drawing himself up with offended dignity. Eliphalet
couldn't exactly see those things, because he never saw the ghosts, but
he felt them. After a silence of nearly a minute a voice came from the
corner where the family ghost stood--a voice strong and full, but
trembling slightly with suppressed passion. And this voice told
Eliphalet it was plain enough that he had not long been the head of the
Duncans, and that he had never properly considered the characteristics
of his race if now he supposed that one of his blood could draw his
sword against a woman. Eliphalet said he had never suggested that the
Duncan ghost should raise his hand against a woman, and all he wanted
was that the Duncan ghost should fight the other ghost. And then the
voice told Eliphalet that the other ghost was a woman."

"What?" said Dear Jones, sitting up suddenly. "You don't mean to tell me
that the ghost which haunted the house was a woman?"

"Those were the very words Eliphalet Duncan used," said Uncle Larry;
"but he did not need to wait for the answer. All at once he recalled the
traditions about the domiciliary ghost, and he knew that what the
titular ghost said was the fact. He had never thought of the sex of a
spook, but there was no doubt whatever that the house ghost was a woman.
No sooner was this firmly fixed in Eliphalet's mind than he saw his way
out of the difficulty. The ghosts must be married!--for then there would
be no more interference, no more quarreling, no more manifestations and
materializations, no more dark seances, with their raps and bells and
tambourines and banjos. At first the ghosts would not hear of it. The
voice in the corner declared that the Duncan wraith had never thought of
matrimony. But Eliphalet argued with them, and pleaded and pursuaded and
coaxed, and dwelt on the advantages of matrimony. He had to confess, of
course, that he did not know how to get a clergyman to marry them; but
the voice from the corner gravely told him that there need be no
difficulty in regard to that, as there was no lack of spiritual
chaplains. Th