do feel
rather peculiar."

"I do, indeed," said the visitor. "You don't dislike it, do you?"

"Well, no, I can't say I do, entirely. It's queer, though, I feel so
uncommon friendly. I feel as if I should like to shake hands or pat
somebody on the back."

"Ah!" said the goblin, "I know how it is. Rum feeling, when you're not
accustomed to it. But come; finish that glass, for we must be off. We've
got a precious deal to do before morning, I can tell you. Are you
ready?"

"All right," said the baron. "I'm just in the humor to make a night of
it."

"Come along, then," said the goblin.

They proceeded for a short time in silence along the corridors of the
old castle. They carried no candle, but the baron noticed that
everything seemed perfectly light wherever they stood, but relapsed into
darkness as soon as they had passed by. The goblin spoke first.

"I say, baron, you've been an uncommon old brute in your time, now,
haven't you?"

"H'm," said the baron, reflectively; "I don't know. Well, yes, I rather
think I have."

"How jolly miserable you've been making those two young people, you old
sinner! You know who I mean."

"Eh, what? You know that, too?" said the baron.

"Know it; of course I do. Why, bless your heart, I know everything, my
dear boy. But you _have_ made yourself an old tyrant in that quarter,
considerably. Ar'n't you blushing, you hard-hearted old monster?"

"Don't know, I'm sure," said the baron, scratching his nose, as if that
was where he expected to feel it. "I believe I have treated them badly,
though, now I come to think of it."

At this moment they reached the door of Bertha's chamber The door opened
of itself at their approach.

"Come along," said the goblin; "you won't wake her. Now, old
flinty-heart, look there."

The sight that met the baron's view was one that few fathers could have
beheld without affectionate emotion. Under ordinary circumstances,
however, the baron would not have felt at all sentimental on the
subject, but to-night something made him view things in quite a
different light.

I shouldn't like to make affidavit of the fact, but it's my positive
impression that he sighed.

Now, my dear reader, don't imagine I'm going to indulge your impertinent
curiosity with an elaborate description of the sacred details of a
lady's sleeping apartment. _You're_ not a fairy, you know, and I don't
see that it can possibly matter to you whether fair Bertha's dainty
little bott