And although, of course, I would not compare one advantage with the other, yet I must say that the pleasures of having a family would possess a great drawback to me, if I were compelled at the same time to become as rotund and untidy in appearance as poor Bessie is at present. And I believe the chief thing Tom Maclean fell in love with was her pretty rounded little figure. Alas! alas! But I am keeping the early dinner waiting. As soon as it was despatched, with the usual accompaniments of cutting up the children’s meat, wiping their mouths, and preventing their throwing the tumblers at each other’s heads, Mrs Maclean rose and offered to show me to my bedroom. It was next to her own, and communicated with it by a door. ‘This dear old place!’ I exclaimed as I entered it; ‘you are making it very pretty, Bessie. Aren’t you glad that you have come into such a handsome property, instead of having been stuck down in a modern villa, with the plaster on the walls only half-dry?’ But Bessie did not appear to appreciate my congratulations. ‘Dolly,’ she said, as she sunk down into a chair, ‘I would change Poplar Farm for the poorest little villa that was ever built.’ ‘My dear girl, what do you mean?’ ‘_Mean!_ That the house is haunted, Dolly—’ I confess it; I could not help it: I burst into the loudest and rudest laugh imaginable. Poplar Farm haunted! What an absurdly unreasonable idea! Why, the last tenants had only just moved out in time to let the Macleans come in, and the house had been freshly papered and painted from basement to attic. There was not a nook nor a corner for a ghost to hide in. I could not help laughing; and what is worse, I could not stop laughing, until my friend was offended. ‘You may laugh as much as you like,’ she said at last; ‘but I have told you nothing but the truth. Do you mean to say that you consider such a thing impossible?’ ‘No! I won’t go as far as that; but I think it is very uncommon, and very unlikely to occur to—to—to—’ Here I was obliged to halt, for the only words I could think of were, ‘to anyone so material as yourself;’ and I couldn’t quite say that. For though I do not deny the possibility of apparitions, I believe that the person who is capable of perceiving them must be composed of more mind than matter, and there is nothing spiritual nor æsthetic about poor Bessie. ‘What is the ghost like, and who has seen it?’ I demanded, as soon as I could command my countenance. ‘Several of the servants and myself,’ replied Bessie; ‘and Tom might have seen it, too, if he were not so lazy. But one night when the noises were close to our door, he refused to rouse himself even to listen to them, and told me to go—Well, dear, I really can’t repeat what he said; but husbands do not always use the politest language when out of temper, you know!’ ‘Noises! Then the ghost has been heard as well as seen?’