Kitty, she learned all about his family. He didn't
tell her about the title for a long time, as he wasn't one to brag. But
he described to her the little old house at Salem. And one evening
toward the end of the summer, the wedding-day having been appointed for
early in September, she told him that she didn't want to bridal tour at
all; she just wanted to go down to the little old house at Salem to
spend her honeymoon in peace and quiet, with nothing to do and nobody
to bother them. Well, Eliphalet jumped at the suggestion. It suited him
down to the ground. All of a sudden he remembered the spooks, and it
knocked him all of a heap. He had told her about the Duncan Banshee,
and the idea of having an ancestral ghost in personal attendance on her
husband tickled her immensely. But he had never said anything about the
ghost which haunted the little old house at Salem. He knew she would be
frightened out of her wits if the house ghost revealed itself to her,
and he saw at once that it would be impossible to go to Salem on their
wedding trip. So he told her all about it, and how whenever he went to
Salem the two ghosts interfered, and gave dark seances and manifested
and materialised and made the place absolutely impossible. Kitty, she
listened in silence, and Eliphalet, he thought she had changed her
mind. But she hadn't done anything of the kind."

"Just like a man--to think she was going to," remarked Baby Van
Rensselaer.

"She just told him she could not bear ghosts herself, but she would not
marry a man who was afraid of them."

"Just like a girl--to be so inconsistent," remarked Dear Jones.

Uncle Larry's tiny cigar had long been extinct. He lighted a new one,
and continued: "Eliphalet protested in vain. Kitty said her mind was
made up. She was determined to pass her honeymoon in the little old
house at Salem, and she was equally determined not to go there as long
as there were any ghosts there. Until he could assure her that the
spectral tenants had received notice to quit, and that there was no
danger of manifestations and materialising, she refused to be married
at all. She did not intend to have her honeymoon interrupted by two
wrangling ghosts, and the wedding could be postponed until he had made
ready the house for her."

"She was an unreasonable young woman," said the Duchess.

"Well, that's what Eliphalet thought, much as he was in love with her.
And he believed he could talk her out of her determination.