it stream back like diamonds
in the moonlight. "I knew a house in St. Kilda which was haunted."

"By what?" asked Brian, sceptically.

"Noises!" she answered, solemnly.

Brian burst out laughing and startled a bat, which fleur round and
round in the silver moonlight, and whirred away into the shelter of a
witch elm.

"Rats and mice are more common here than ghosts," he said, lightly.
"I'm afraid the inhabitants of your haunted house were fanciful."

"So you don't believe in ghosts?"

"There's a Banshee in our family," said Brian, with a gay smile, "who
is supposed to cheer our death beds with her howlings; but as I've
never seen the lady myself, I'm afraid she's a Mrs. Harris."

"It's aristocratic to have a ghost in a family, I believe," said Madge;
"that is the reason we colonials have none."

"Ah, but you will have," he answered with a careless laugh. "There are,
no doubt, democratic as well as aristocratic ghosts; but, pshaw!" he
went on, impatiently, "what nonsense I talk. There are no ghosts,
except of a man's own raising. The ghosts of a dead youth--the ghosts
of past follies--the ghosts of what might have been--these are the
spectres which are more to be feared than those of the churchyard."

Madge looked at him in silence, for she understood the meaning of that
passionate outburst--the secret which the dead woman had told him, and
which hung like a shadow over his life. She arose quietly and took his
arm. The light touch roused him, and a faint wind sent an eerie rustle
through the still leaves of the magnolia, as they walked back in
silence to the house.

CHAPTER XXIV.

BRIAN RECEIVES A LETTER.

Notwithstanding the hospitable invitation of Mr. Frettlby, Brian
refused to stay at Yabba Yallook that night, but after saying good-bye
to Madge, mounted his horse and rode slowly away in the moonlight. He
felt very happy, and letting the reins lie on his horse's neck, he gave
himself up unreservedly to his thoughts. ATRA CURA certainly did not
sit behind the horseman on this night; and Brian, to his surprise,
found himself singing "Kitty of Coleraine," as he rode along in the
silver moonlight. And was he not right to sing when the future seemed
so bright and pleasant? Oh, yes! they would live on the ocean, and she
would find how much pleasanter it was on the restless waters, with
their solemn sense of mystery, than on the crowded land.

"Was not the sea
Made for the free--
Land for cou