"This is the green chamber, sir," she repeated, with her brows raised and her eyes still lowered askance, and some queer wrinkles on her forehead as she nodded a sharp bitter emphasis. "To be sure it is, damme!--why not?" he said, testily, and then burst into a short laugh. "You're not a going, I suppose, Sir Jekyl, to put anyone into it?" said she. "I don't see, for the life of me, why I should not--eh? a devilish comfortable room." "Hem! I can't but suppose you are a joking me, Sir Jekyl," persisted the gray silk phantom. "Egad! you forget how old we're growing; why the plague should I quiz you! I want the room for old General Lennox, that's all--though I'm not bound to tell you for whom I want it--am I?" "There's a plenty o' rooms without this one, Sir Jekyl," persevered the lady, sternly. "Plenty, of course; but none so good," said he, carelessly. "No one ever had luck that slept in it," answered the oracle, lifting her odd eyes and fixing them on Sir Jekyl. "I don't put them here for luck. We want to make them comfortable," answered Sir Jekyl, poking at the furniture as he spoke. "You know what was your father's wish about it, sir?" she insisted. "My father's wish--egad, he did not leave many of his wishes unsatisfied--eh?" he answered, with another chuckle. "And your poor lady's wish," she said, a good deal more sharply. "I don't know why the devil I'm talking to you, old Gwynn," said the Baronet, turning a little fiercely about. "_Dying_ wishes," emphasised she. "It is time, Heaven knows, all that stuff should stop. You slept in it yourself, in my father's time. I remember you, here, Donica, and I don't think I ever heard that you saw a ghost--did I?" he said, with a sarcastic chuckle. She darted a ghastly look to the far end of the chamber, and then, with a strange, half-frozen fury, she said-- "I wish you good-night, Sir Jekyl," and glided like a shadow out of the room. "Saucy as ever, by Jupiter," he ejaculated, following her with his glance, and trying to smile; and as the door shut, he looked again down the long apartment as she had just done, raising the candle again. The light was not improved of course by the disappearance of Mrs. Gwynn's candle, and the end of the room was dim and unsatisfactory. The great four-poster, with dark curtains, and a plume at each corner, threw a vague shadow on the back wall and up to the ceiling, as he moved his candle, which at the distance gave him an uncomfortable sensation, and he stood for a few seconds sternly there, and then turned on his heel and quitted the room, saying aloud, as he did so-- "What a d--d fool that old woman is--always _was_!"