.'

'Amy thinks you must have seen the ghost,' said Laura, trying to be gay.

'Did I frighten you?' said Guy, turning round, full of compunction.
'No, no. I never saw it. I never even heard of its being seen. I am very
sorry.'

'I was very silly,' said Amy smiling.

'But,' proceeded Guy, 'when I think of the origin of the ghost story, I
cannot laugh, and if Philip knew all--'

'Oh! He does not,' cried Laura; 'he only looks on it as we have always
done, as a sort of romantic appendage to Redclyffe. I should think
better of a place for being haunted.'

'I used to be proud of it,' said Guy. 'I wanted to make out whether it
was old Sir Hugh or the murderer of Becket, who was said to groan and
turn the lock of Dark Hugh's chamber. I hunted among old papers, and a
horrible story I found. That wretched Sir Hugh,--the same who began the
quarrel with your mother's family--he was a courtier of Charles II, as
bad or worse than any of that crew--'

'What was the quarrel about?' said Laura.

'He was believed to have either falsified or destroyed his father's
will, so as to leave his brother, your ancestor, landless; his brother
remonstrated, and he turned him out of doors. The forgery never was
proved, but there was little doubt of it. There are traditions of his
crimes without number, especially his furious anger and malice. He
compelled a poor lady to marry him, though she was in love with another
man; then he was jealous; he waylaid his rival, shut him up in the
turret chamber, committed him to prison, and bribed Judge Jeffries
to sentence him--nay it is even said he carried his wife to see the
execution! He was so execrated that he fled the country; he went to
Holland, curried favour with William of Orange, brought his wealth to
help him, and that is the deserving action which got him the baronetcy!
He served in the army a good many years, and came home when he thought
his sins would be forgotten. But do you remember those lines?' and Guy
repeated them in the low rigid tone, almost of horror, in which he had
been telling the story:--

'On some his vigorous judgments light,
In that dread pause 'twixt day and night,
Life's closing twilight hour;
Round some, ere yet they meet their doom,
Is shed the silence of the tomb,
The eternal shadows lower.'

'It was so with him; he lost his senses, and after man