Bertie Dykson
was just two years old, and you must expect some difference in appearance
and manner and conversation between those two periods."

"Do you know," said Mrs. Dole, confidentially, "I shouldn't be surprised
if that was intended to be clever."

"Have you any one interesting coming to stay with you, Mrs. Norbury?"
asked the chinchilla voice, hastily; "you generally have a house party at
this time of year."

"I've got a most interesting woman coming," said Mrs. Norbury, who had
been mutely struggling for some chance to turn the conversation into a
safe channel; "an old acquaintance of mine, Ada Bleek--"

"What an ugly name," said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard.

"She's descended from the de la Bliques, an old Huguenot family of
Touraine, you know."

"There weren't any Huguenots in Touraine," said Mrs. Hatch-Mallard, who
thought she might safely dispute any fact that was three hundred years
old.

"Well, anyhow, she's coming to stay with me," continued Mrs. Norbury,
bringing her story quickly down to the present day, "she arrives this
evening, and she's highly clairvoyante, a seventh daughter of a seventh
daughter, you now, and all that sort of thing."

"How very interesting," said the chinchilla voice; "Exwood is just the
right place for her to come to, isn't it? There are supposed to be
several ghosts there."

"That is why she was so anxious to come," said Mrs. Norbury; "she put off
another engagement in order to accept my invitation. She's had visions
and dreams, and all those sort of things, that have come true in a most
marvellous manner, but she's never actually seen a ghost, and she's
longing to have that experience. She belongs to that Research Society,
you know."

"I expect she'll see the unhappy Lady Cullumpton, the most famous of all
the Exwood ghosts," said Mrs. Dole; "my ancestor, you know, Sir Gervase
Cullumpton, murdered his young bride in a fit of jealousy while they were
on a visit to Exwood. He strangled her in the stables with a stirrup
leather, just after they had come in from riding, and she is seen
sometimes at dusk going about the lawns and the stable yard, in a long
green habit, moaning and trying to get the thong from round her throat. I
shall be most interested to hear if your friend sees--"

"I don't know why she should be expected to see a trashy, traditional
apparition like the so-called Cullumpton ghost, that is only vouched for
by housemaids and tipsy stable-boys, when my unc