ting for you.'

'Are they new, Brosy?' she asked, hesitating.

'The lady must put on the slippers, or she cannot enter the princely
apartments,' said the custodian severely.

'Must I really, Brosy?' she inquired, looking extremely unhappy. 'I am
so terribly afraid of infection, or--or other things. Do they think we
shall spoil their carpets?'

'The floors are polished, I imagine,' said Ambrose, 'and the owner is
probably afraid the visitors might slip and hurt themselves.'

'Really quite nice and considerate of him--if only they were new.'

Ambrose shuffled to the end of the row in his and took up two.' Look
here, mother,' he said, bringing them to her, 'here's quite a new pair.
Never been worn before. Put them on--they can't possibly do any harm.'

They were not new, but Mrs. Harvey-Browne thought they were and
consented to put them on. The instant they were on her feet, stretching
out in all their hugeness far beyond the frills of her skirt and
obliging her to slide instead of walk, she became gracious. The smile
with which she slid past me was amiable as well as deprecatory. They had
apparently reduced her at once to the level of other sinful mortals.
This effect seemed to me so subtle that again I fell a-pondering.

'Frau Nieberlein is not with you this morning?' she asked pleasantly, as
we shuffled side by side into the princely apartments.

'She is resting. She had rather a bad night.'

'Nerves, of course.'

'No, ghosts.'

'Ghosts?'

'It's the same thing,' said Ambrose. 'Is it not, sir?' he asked amiably
of the man in spectacles.

'Perhaps,' said the man in spectacles cautiously.

'But not a real ghost?' asked Mrs. Harvey-Browne, interested.

'I believe the great point about a ghost is that it never is real.'

'The bishop doesn't believe in them either. But I--I really hardly know.
One hears such strange tales. The wife of one of the clergy of our
diocese believes quite firmly in them. She is a vegetarian, and of
course she eats a great many vegetables, and then she sees ghosts.'

'The chimney-piece,' said the guide, 'is constructed entirely of Roman
marble.'

'Really?' said Mrs. Harvey-Browne, examining it abstractedly through her
eyeglasses. 'She declares their vicarage is haunted; and what in the
world do you think by? The strangest thing. It is haunted by the ghost
of a cat.'

'The statue on the right is by Thorwaldsen,' said the guide.

'By the ghost of a cat,' repeated Mrs. Harvey-B