"Why, the ghost, to be sure. The first night he was in the house he went poking about looking for burglars, and saw it or heard it, I forget which; they say he did not stop running till he reached the police station, and that's nearly a mile away, and he wouldn't come back but took a cab to the hotel in his pyjamas. But the funny thing is, that ever since the day father abused him, he has been our best friend; he's helped us in money matters lots of times, and he always sends us hares and things when he goes shooting. The ghost always brings us luck when she can--always." "You believe in Luck?" "I believe in everything, so does father." "And this ghost, it's a 'she' you said, I think?" "It's Fanny Lambert." "Oh!" "My great-grandmother." "Tell me about her," said Charles, lighting a new cigar and leaning back luxuriously on the seat. The seat was under a chestnut tree, before them lay a little wilderness, sunflowers unburst from the bud, stocks, and clove pinks. In its centre stood a moss-grown sun-dial bearing this old dial inscription in Latin, "The hours pass and are numbered." From this wilderness of a garden came the drone of bees, a dreamy sound that seemed to refute the motto upon the dial. "She lived," said Fanny, "a hundred, or maybe two hundred, years ago; anyhow it was in the time of the Regency--and I wish to goodness I had lived then." "Why?" "Oh, it must have been such fun." "How do you know about the time of the Regency?" "I have read about it in the library, there are a lot of old books about it, and one of them is in handwriting, not in print. You know in those times the Lamberts lived here at 'The Laurels,' just as we do, that's what makes the house so old; and the Prince Regent used to drive up here in a carriage and pair of coal-black horses. He was in love with Mrs Lambert, and she was in love with him. I don't wonder at her." "Well, you ought to wonder at her," said Charles in a hectoring voice, blowing a cloud of smoke at a bumble-bee that had alighted on Fanny's dress, and was rubbing its hands together as if in satisfaction at the prosperous times and the plenty of flowers. "Don't blow smoke at the poor thing. Isn't he fat!--there, he is gone. Why ought I to wonder at her?" "Because she was married." "Why shouldn't she be married?" "Ahem!" said Charles, clearing his throat. "Why?" "I meant to say that she should not have loved the Prince." "Why not? he was awfully good to them. Do you know George, Fanny's husband, must have been very like father; he was like him in face, for we have a miniature of him, but he was like him in other ways, too. He would sit up at Crockfords--what _was_ Crockfords?" "A kind of club, I believe." "He would sit up at Crockfords playing cards all night, and he killed a man once by hitting him over the head with a poker; the jury said the man died of apoplexy, but he kept the man's wife and children always afterwards, and that is just what father would have done."