on't see why I
should. I'm snug and comfortable here, and it's not worth disturbing
myself to convince a boy like you!"

"So you say." Pat wagged his head in undisguised scepticism. "It's
easy to talk, my dear, but I should prefer actions to words. You made a
poor show on that ladder yesterday, and I don't like to own a coward for
my sister. Look here now, you were worrying me to give you that racket,
and I said I would do nothing of the kind, but I'll change my mind and
hand it over to you to-night, if you will walk that round and come back
here without letting a single howl out of you the whole time!"

Bridgie drew her brows together and looked suspicious at this unwonted
generosity, but Esmeralda sprang to her feet, all eagerness and
excitement.

"You will now? Honour bright? If I walk down the left wing, go down
the circular staircase, and round by the hall, you will hand the racket
over when I come back?"

"I will so!"

"You hear that, you girls? You are witnesses, remember! I'm off this
minute, and if I meet my spouse I'll bring him back for a warm by the
fire, so stoke up and get a good blaze. I hope he will think I am
becomingly arrayed."

He was sure to do that, was Mademoiselle's reflection as she smiled back
into the sparkling face, and watched the tall figure flit down the
corridor. Quite ghost-like it looked in the cold blue rays which came
in through the windows, the dead white of the dress standing out sharply
against the darkness of the background. It was almost as if the spirit
of one of those old ancestors whose portraits lined the walls had come
back to revisit her old home, and Bridgie shivered as she looked, and
turned on Pat with unusual sharpness.

"What nonsense are you up to now? She'll not catch anything but her
death of cold, wandering about those galleries with her bare arms and
neck. Spirits indeed! You ought to know better than to believe in such
nonsense; but there's some mischief afoot, or you wouldn't be so
generous all of a sudden. What's the meaning of it now? Tell me this
minute!"

Pat's grin of delight extended from ear to ear; he stood in obstinate
silence until the last flicker of whiteness disappeared in the distance,
then shut the door, and deliberately barred it with his back.

"Sit down, then, and I'll give the history; but don't attempt to get
out, for you'll not pass this door except over my dead body. You say
she won't meet anybody, do you? Tha