h, and, above
all things, you must reward your champion and defender with a kiss, in
token of your sincere gratitude."

"So that Virtue is its own reward," Dagobert said, with a comic pathos,
as he took Marguerite's hand. "All I ask of you, beauteous lady," he
continued, "is to believe that the world contains (though you might be
sceptical on the subject) legal luminaries of such a heroic sort that
they do not hesitate a moment to offer themselves up a sacrifice at the
shrine of Innocence and Truth. But we must obey the commands of our
fair judge, from whose award there is no appeal." And he impressed a
fugitive kiss upon Marguerite's lips, and then led her back to her seat
with much solemnity. Marguerite, blushing like a rose, laughed very
heartily; but the bright tears still stood in her eyes.

"Stupid fool that I am," she cried in French, "have I not got to do
whatever Madame von G. bids me? I will keep perfectly calm. I will go
on making their punch. I will listen to their ghost-stories without
being in the least afraid."

"Bravo, angelic child," cried Dagobert. "My heroism has infected you,
and the sweetness of your lips has inspired _me_. My imagination has
unfolded new wings, and I feel ready to serve up the most awful events
and mysteries from the 'Regno di Pianto.'"

"I thought we had done with this unpleasant subject," said Madame von
G.

"Oh no, mother dear," cried Angelica eagerly; "please to let Dagobert
go on! I am exactly like a child about those things. I don't know
anything I so delight in as a nice ghost story--something that makes
all one's flesh creep."

"Oh, how I _do_ like that!" Dagobert cried. "Nothing is so utterly
delightful in young ladies as their being tremendously superstitious,
and easily frightened; and I should never dream of marrying a woman who
was not terribly afraid of ghosts."

"You were saying a little while ago, dear Dagobert," said Moritz, "that
we ought to guard ourselves against--or take care how we allow
ourselves to get into--that dreamy state of awe which is the
commencement of spirit-fear--the dread of the superhuman, the ghostly
world. You have still got to explain to us the _why_."

"If there is, at the commencement of it, any real cause for that sense
of awesomeness--which is at first so thoroughly blended up with the
_dreamily_ pleasurable--it by no means remains at that stage. Soon
there supervenes a deadly fear--a horror which makes the hair stand on
end; s