Mrs. Overtheway's face, over
which an occasional smile was passing.

"It's about a ghost who snored," said the little old lady, doubtfully.

"Delicious!" responded Ida. The two friends settled themselves
comfortably, and in some such words as these was told the following
story:--

THE SNORING GHOST.

_Clown._ Madman, thou errest: I say there is no darkness but
Ignorance, in which thou art more puzzled than the Egyptians
in their fog.... What is the opinion of Pythagoras
concerning wild fowl?

_Malvolio._ That the soul of our grandam might haply inhabit
a bird.

_Clown._ What thinkest thou of his opinion?

_Malvolio_. I think nobly of the soul, and in no way approve
his opinion.

_Twelfth Night_, iv. 2.

"I remember," said Mrs. Overtheway, "I remember my first visit. That
is, I remember the occasion when I and my sister Fatima did, for the
first time in our lives, go out visiting without our mother, or any
grown-up person to take care of us."

"Do you remember your mother?" asked Ida.

"Quite well, my dear, I am thankful to say. The best and kindest of
mothers!"

"Was your father alive, too?" Ida asked, with a sigh.

The old lady paused, pitying the anxious little face opposite, but
Ida went on eagerly:

"Please tell me what _he_ was like."

"He was a good deal older than my mother, who had married very early.
He was a very learned man. His tastes and accomplishments were many
and various, and he was very young-hearted and enthusiastic in the
pursuit of them all his life. He was apt to take up one subject of
interest after another, and to be for the time completely absorbed in
it. And, I must tell you, that whatever the subject might be, so long
as his head was full of it, the house seemed full of it too. It
influenced the conversation at meals, the habits of the household, the
names of the pet animals, and even of the children. I was called Mary,
in a fever of chivalrous enthusiasm for the fair and luckless Queen of
Scotland, and Fatima received her name when the study of Arabic had
brought about an eastern mania. My father had wished to call her
Shahrazad, after the renowned sultana of the 'Arabian Nights' but when
he called upon the curate to arrange for the baptism, that worthy man
flatly rebelled. A long discussion ended in my father's making a list
of eastern names, from which the curate selected that of Fatima as
being least repugnant