"You don't mean to tell
me that the ghost which haunted the house was a woman?"

"Those were the very words Eliphalet Duncan used," said Uncle Larry;
"but he did not need to wait for the answer. All at once he recalled
the traditions about the domiciliary ghost, and he knew that what the
titular ghost said was the fact. He had never thought of the sex of a
spook, but there was no doubt whatever that the house ghost was a
woman. No sooner was this firmly fixed in Eliphalet's mind than he saw
his way out of the difficulty. The ghosts must be married!--for then
there would be no more interference, no more quarrelling, no more
manifestations and materializations, no more dark seances, with their
raps and bells and tambourines and banjos. At first the ghosts would
not hear of it. The voice in the corner declared that the Duncan wraith
had never thought of matrimony. But Eliphalet argued with them, and
pleaded and persuaded and coaxed, and dwelt on the advantages of
matrimony. He had to confess, of course, that he did not know how to
get a clergyman to marry them; but the voice from the corner gravely
told him that there need be no difficulty in regard to that, as there
was no lack of spiritual chaplains. Then, for the first time, the house
ghost spoke, in a low, clear gentle voice, and with a quaint,
old-fashioned New England accent, which contrasted sharply with the
broad Scotch speech of the family ghost. She said that Eliphalet Duncan
seemed to have forgotten that she was married. But this did not upset
Eliphalet at all; he remembered the whole case clearly and he told her
she was not a married ghost, but a widow, since her husband had been
hung for murdering her. Then the Duncan ghost drew attention to the
great disparity of their ages, saying that he was nearly four hundred
and fifty years old, while she was barely two hundred. But Eliphalet
had not talked to juries for nothing; he just buckled to, and coaxed
those ghosts into matrimony. Afterward he came to the conclusion that
they were willing to be coaxed, but at the time he thought he had
pretty hard work to convince them of the advantages of the plan."

"Did he succeed?" asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with a young lady's
interest in matrimony.

"He did," said Uncle Larry. "He talked the wraith of the Duncans and
the spectre of the little old house at Salem into a matrimonial
engagement. And from the time they were engaged he had no more trouble
with them. They were