Ellen continued playing with her face bowed down over the harpsichord. Margaret, a healthy cheerful girl, had lived generally with an old aunt in the south of England. But the two girls wore mourning. In the flower of her years their mother had departed from them, after long lingering in broken health. The bandeau seemed to have been unrolled from poor Paul's eyes, for, after a long pause, which had been filled by Ellen's music, he said: "Ellen, did _you_ ever see Sir Godfrey?" She left her harpsichord and came to him, and leaning down over his shoulder, kissed him. Was she thinking of the sorrow that would come upon him soon? The sudden closing of a heavy door startled us all. But a loud jovial voice restored our spirits. Sir Francis had come in from his afternoon walk and gossip, and was clamoring for tea. "Why, boys and girls, all in the dark! What mischief are you after?" "Laughing at the Holyoke Ghost, papa," said Margaret. "Laughing, indeed; you look as if you had been drinking with him. Silly tale! silly tale! Look at me, I'm hale and hearty. Why don't Sir Godfrey tackle me? I'd like a draught out of his flagon." A door below us creaked upon its hinges. Ellen shrank back visibly alarmed. "You silly butterfly," Sir Francis cried, "it's Thomas coming up out of the kitchen with the candles you left me to order. Tea, girls, tea!" Sir Francis, a stout, warm-faced, and warm-hearted gentleman, kept us amused through the remainder of that evening. My business the next day called me to London, from whence I sailed in a few days for Valparaiso. While abroad, I heard of Ellen's death. On my return to England, I went immediately to the old cathedral city, where I had many friends. There I was shocked to hear that Sir Francis himself had died of apoplexy, and that Margaret, the sole heir and survivor, had gone back, with her health injured, to live with her aunt in the south of England. The dear old house, ghost and all, had been To Let, and had been taken by a school-mistress. It was now "Holyoke House Seminary for Young Ladies." The school had succeeded through the talent of its mistress; but although she was not a lady of the stocks and backboard school, the sickliness among her pupils had been very noticeable. Scarlet fever, too, had got among them, of which three had died. The school had become in consequence almost deserted, and the lady who had occupied the house was on the point of quitting. Surely, I thought, if this be Sir Godfrey's work, he is as relentless an old goblin as can be imagined.