EL

From the short unsatisfying slumber which sometimes follows a night of
insomnia I was awakened by the laughter and shouts of children. When I
looked out I saw brooding above the hollow a still gray day, in whose
light the woodlands of the park were all in sombre brown, and the trout
stream between its sedgy banks glided dark and lustreless.

On the lawn, still wet with dew, and crossed by the shadows of the bare
elms, Atherley's little sons, Harold and Denis, were playing with a very
unlovely but much-beloved mongrel called Tip. They had bought him with
their own pocket-money from a tinker who was ill-using him, and then
claimed for him the hospitality of their parents; so, though Atherley
often spoke of the dog as a disgrace to the household, he remained a
member thereof, and received, from a family incapable of being uncivil,
far less unkind, to an animal, as much attention as if he had been
high-bred and beautiful--which indeed he plainly supposed himself to be.

When, about an hour later, after their daily custom, this almost
inseparable trio fell into the breakfast-room as if the door had
suddenly given way before them, the boys were able to revenge themselves
for the rebuke this entrance provoked by the tidings they brought with
them.

"I say, old Mallet is going," cried Harold cheerfully, as he wriggled
himself on to his chair. "Denis, mind I want some of that egg-stuff."

"Take your arms off the table, Harold," said Lady Atherley. "Pray, how
do you know Mrs. Mallet is going?"

"She said so herself. She said," he went on, screwing up his nose and
speaking in a falsetto to express the intensity of his scorn--"she said
she was afraid of the ghost."

"I told you I did not allow that word to be mentioned."

"I did not; it was old Mallet."

"But, pray, what were you doing in old Mallet's domain?" asked Atherley.

"Cooking cabbage for Tip."

"Hum! What with ghosts by night and boys by day, our cook seems to have
a pleasant time of it; I shall be glad when Miss Jones's holidays are
over. Castleman, is it true that Mrs. Mallet talks of leaving us because
of the ghost?"

"I am sure I don't know, Sir George," answered the old butler. "She was
going on about it very foolish this morning."

"And how is the kitchen-maid?"

"Has not come down yet, Sir George; says her nerve is shook," said
Castleman, retiring with a plate to the sideboard; then added, with the
freedom of an old servant, "Bile, _I_ should