friend,--they returned bearing the dishes before them on large
trays. In each of them the spirit was lighted as they entered the
schoolroom door, and thus, as they walked in, they were illuminated
by the dark-blue flames which they carried.

"Oh, is it not grand?" said Marian, appealing to Felix Graham.

"Uncommonly grand," he replied.

"And which ghost do you think is the grandest? I'll tell you which
ghost I like the best,--in a secret, you know; I like aunt Mad the
best, and I think she's the grandest too."

"And I'll tell you in a secret that I think the same. To my mind she
is the grandest ghost I ever saw in my life."

"Is she indeed?" asked Marian, solemnly, thinking probably that her
new friend's experience in ghosts must be extensive. However that
might be, he thought that as far as his experience in women went, he
had never seen anything more lovely than Madeline Staveley dressed in
a long white sheet, with a long bit of white cambric pinned round her
face.

And it may be presumed that the dress altogether is not unbecoming
when accompanied by blue flames, for Augustus Staveley and Lucius
Mason thought the same thing of Miss Furnival, whereas Peregrine Orme
did not know whether he was standing on his head or his feet as he
looked at Miss Staveley. Miss Furnival may possibly have had some
inkling of this when she offered to undertake the task, but I protest
that such was not the case with Madeline. There was no second thought
in her mind when she first declined the ghosting, and afterwards
undertook the part. No wish to look beautiful in the eyes of Felix
Graham had come to her--at any rate as yet; and as to Peregrine Orme,
she had hardly thought of his existence. "By heavens!" said Peregrine
to himself, "she is the most beautiful creature that I ever saw;" and
then he began to speculate within his own mind how the idea might be
received at The Cleeve.

But there was no such realised idea with Felix Graham. He saw that
Madeline Staveley was very beautiful, and he felt in an unconscious
manner that her character was very sweet. He may have thought that he
might have loved such a girl, had such love been a thing permitted to
him. But this was far from being the case. Felix Graham's lot in this
life, as regarded that share which his heart might have in it, was
already marked out for him;--marked out for himself and by himself.
The future wife of his bosom had already been selected, and was now
in course