of the story which, by special permission, I repeated to him next
day. "I never heard a weaker ghost story. She explains the whole thing
away as she tells it. She was, as she candidly admits, ill and
feverish--sickening for a fever, in fact, when the most rational
person's senses are apt to play them strange tricks. She is alone at the
dead of night in a house she believes to be haunted; and then her
dog--an odious little beast, I remember him well, always barking at
something or nothing;--the dog suggests there is somebody near. She
looks round into a dark part of the room, and naturally, inevitably--all
things considered--sees a ghost. Did you say it wore a ruff and puffed
sleeves?"

"So Mrs. Mostyn said."

"Of course, because, as I told you, Aunt Eleanour believed in the
Elizabethan portrait theory. If it had been Aunt Henrietta, the ghost
would have been in armour. Ghosts and all visitors from the other world
obligingly correspond with the preconceived notions of the visionary.
When a white robe and a halo were considered the proper celestial
outfit, saints and angels always appeared with white robes and halos. In
the same way, the African savage, who believes in a god with a crooked
leg, always sees him in dreams, waking or asleep, with a crooked leg;
and--"

Here we were interrupted by a great stir in the hall outside, and Lady
Atherley looked in to explain that the carriage with Uncle Augustus was
just coming down the drive.

Her manner reminded me of the full importance of this arrival, as well
as of the unfortunate circumstance that, owing to the ill-timed absence
of the dissenting plasterer, the Canon must be lodged in the little room
opposite to my own.

However, when I went into the drawing-room, I found him accepting his
niece's apologies and explanations with great good-humour. To me also he
was especially gracious.

"I had the pleasure of dining at Lindesford, Mr. Lyndsay, when you must
have been in long clothes. I remember we had some of the finest trout I
ever tasted. Are they still as good in your river?"

His voice, like himself, was massive and impressive; his bearing and
manner inspired me with wistful admiration: what must life be to a man
so self-confident, and so rightly self-confident?

"Is not Uncle Augustus a fine-looking man?" asked Lady Atherley, when he
had left the room with Atherley. "I cannot think why they do not make
him a bishop; he would look so well in the robes. He ought