say."

"Probably. We had better send for Doctor What's-his-name."

"The usual doctor is away," said Lady Atherley. "There is a London
doctor in his place. He is clever, Lady Sylvia said, but he gives
himself airs."

"Never mind what he gives himself if he gives his patients the right
thing."

"And after all we can manage very well without Ann, but what are we to
do about Mrs. Mallet? I always told you how it would be."

"But, my dear, it is not my fault. You look as reproachfully at me as if
it were my ghost which was causing all this disturbance instead of the
ghost of a remote ancestor--predecessor, in fact."

"No, but you will always talk just as if it was of no consequence."

"I don't talk of the cook's going as being of no consequence. Far from
it. But you must not let her go, that is all."

"How can I prevent her going? I think you had better talk to her
yourself."

"I should like to meet her very much; would not you, Lindy? I should
like to hear her story; it must be a blood-curdling one, to judge from
its effect upon Ann. The only person I have yet met who pretended to
have seen the ghost was Aunt Eleanour."

"And what was it like, daddy?" asked Denis, much interested.

"She did not say, Den. She would never tell me anything about it."

"Would she tell me?"

"I am afraid not. I don't think she would tell any one, except perhaps
Mr. Lyndsay. He has a way of worming things out of people."

"Mr. Lyndsay, how do you worm things out of people?"

"I don't know, Denis; you must ask your father."

"First, by never asking any questions," said Atherley promptly; "and
then by a curious way he has of looking as if he was listening
attentively to what was said to him, instead of thinking, as most people
do, what he shall say himself when he gets a chance of putting a word
in."

"But how could Aunt Eleanour see the ghost when there is not any such
thing?" cried Harold.

"How indeed!" said his father, rising; "that is just the puzzle. It will
take you years to find it out. Lindy, look into the morning-room in
about half an hour, and you will hear a tale whose lightest word will
harrow up thy soul, etc., etc."

As Lady Atherley kindly seconded this invitation I accepted it, though
not with the consequences predicted. Anything less suggestive of the
supernatural, or in every way less like the typical ghost-seer, was
surely never produced than the round and rubicund little person I found
in conversation