"How careless I have been! I should have discovered all this long ago if I had believed it was aught but a girl's nervous fancies; but mammy's corroboration assures me it was reality. Now I shall take such steps that she will never be annoyed again," he said, sternly; and suited the action to the word by giving up the room next his own, an airy dressing-room, to Dainty's use, making it perfectly safe by having in a carpenter to attach a wire to the young girl's bed, that, running along the ceiling, passed through into his own room, with a large bell at the end. The whole household was made aware of this unique ghost alarm, and Love said, sternly: "At the least disturbance in Miss Chase's room, she has but to touch the wire by her bed, and the communicating bell will ring close to me, so that I can fly to her rescue. I do not need to say that the practical joker will fare badly at my hands." Poor, nervous, shaken black mammy had been sent home to rest. Dainty would not need any one, now that she had her ghost alarm, the young man said, smilingly; and every one understood his determination to protect his love at every hazard. The guilty party must have felt rather disconcerted at the turn affairs had taken. Black mammy had not told any one yet that she had a clew by which she hoped to win the reward Love had offered for the detection of the impostor; but after she had grappled with the wretch who was bearing off Dainty, she had found in the claw-like grasp of her fingers some bits of torn torchon lace that might have been clutched forcibly from the sleeve of a night-dress. She kept the fragments carefully, determining to find the garment they matched. CHAPTER XVII. THE NIGHT BEFORE THE WEDDING. Apparently the Ellsworth ghost became disgusted with the prosaic means adapted to secure its identification. From that horror-haunted night it ceased to invade Dainty's chamber with its grewsome cough and ghoulish presence. It was true that in some of her occasional solitary moments, in some quiet twilight hour, she had been startled by the sound of that hateful cough, coming from apparently nowhere; but she fled at once in terror from the spot, and forebore to mention it to her lover, who was radiantly happy, deeming that the malicious ghost was exorcised forever. The beautiful summer days flew past on wings of joy, bringing the fateful first of August that was to witness Dainty's bridal, as well as the twenty-sixth birthday of the handsome master of Ellsworth. Everything was in readiness for the wedding when the last day of July brought Mrs. Chase to her daughter's arms again, and Dainty's happiness seemed complete. Everything seemed to be going on so propitiously that Dainty cast her dismal forebodings to the winds. Surely nothing could part her from her lover now! The malice of her enemies had fallen harmless to the ground.