st ghosts of tragedy.

"But the ghost must speak when such large hands invade the caldron;"
and then another raid was effected, and the threatened blow was
given. Had any one told her in the morning that she would that day
have rapped Mr. Graham's knuckles with a kitchen spoon, she would not
have believed that person; but it is thus that hearts are lost and
won.

And Peregrine Orme looked on from a distance, thinking of it all.
That he should have been stricken dumb by the beauty of any girl was
surprising even to himself; for though young and almost boyish in his
manners, he had never yet feared to speak out in any presence. The
tutor at his college had thought him insolent beyond parallel; and
his grandfather, though he loved him for his open face and plain
outspoken words, found them sometimes almost too much for him. But
now he stood there looking and longing, and could not summon courage
to go up and address a few words to this young girl even in the midst
of their sports. Twice or thrice during the last few days he had
essayed to speak to her, but his words had been dull and vapid, and
to himself they had appeared childish. He was quite conscious of his
own weakness. More than once, during that period of the snap-dragon,
did he say to himself that he would descend into the lists and break
a lance in that tourney; but still he did not descend, and his lance
remained inglorious in its rest.

At the other end of the long table the ghost also had two attendant
knights, and neither of them refrained from the battle. Augustus
Staveley, if he thought it worth his while to keep the lists at
all, would not be allowed to ride through them unopposed from any
backwardness on the part of his rival. Lucius Mason was not likely
to become a timid, silent, longing lover. To him it was not possible
that he should fear the girl whom he loved. He could not worship that
which he wished to obtain for himself. It may be doubted whether he
had much faculty of worshipping anything in the truest meaning of
that word. One worships that which one feels, through the inner and
unexpressed conviction of the mind, to be greater, better, higher
than oneself; but it was not probable that Lucius Mason should so
think of any woman that he might meet.

Nor, to give him his due, was it probable that he should be in any
way afraid of any man that he might encounter. He would fear neither
the talent, nor the rank, nor the money influence, nor the d