"Oh, James!" says his wife, with a lively reproach, "have I lived to see you perpetrate a joke?" "But where is the spectre?" I venture to remark. "You must really ask Miss Beatoun," says Chips. "I have done my duty valiantly; no one can say I funked it. I have done my very best to produce a respectable _bona fide_ bogy; and if I have failed, I am not to be blamed. Now I insist on Miss Beatoun's producing hers. We cannot possibly go back to the domestics (who, I feel positive, are cowering upon the lowest stair) empty-handed. Miss Beatoun, you have brought us all here at the peril of our lives. Now where is he?" "It was not a man," says Bebe. "Then where is she?" "I am not sure it was a woman either," with some hesitation. "Ye powers!" cries Chips. "Then what was it? a mermaid? an undiscovered gender? The plot thickens. I shan't be able to sleep a wink to-night unless you be more explicit." "Then you may stay wide awake," retorts Miss Beatoun, "as I remember nothing but those horrid eyes. You have chosen to turn it all into ridicule; and who ever heard of a ghost appearing amidst shouts of laughter? How dreadfully cold it is! Do shut that window and let us go back to the drawing-room fire." "I hope your next venture will be more successful," says Chips, meekly. And then we all troop down again to the cozy room we have quitted, by no means wiser than when we started. Somehow I think no more about it, and, except that I keep Martha busied in my room until I hear Marmaduke's step, next door, I show no further cowardice. The general air of disbelief around me quenches my fears, and the bidding farewell to the guests I have got to like so well occupies me to the exclusion of all other matters. Then follows Dora's wedding, a very quiet but very charming little affair, remarkable for nothing beyond the fact that during the inevitable breakfast speeches my father actually contrives to squeeze out two small tears. The happy pair start for the Continent--the bride all smiles and brown velvet and lace, the bridegroom, perhaps; a trifle pale--and we at home fall once more into our usual ways, and try to forget that Dora Vernon was ever anything but Lady Ashurst. Marmaduke and I, having decided on accepting no invitations until after Christmas, being filled with a desire to spend this season (which will be our first together) in our own home, settle down for a short time into a lazy Darby-and-Joan existence. --- It is the second of December; the little ormolu toy up on the mantle-piece has chimed out a quarter to five; it is almost quite dark, yet there is still a glimmer of daylight that might, perhaps, be even more pronounced but for the blazing fire within that puts it to shame. "What a cosy little room it is!" says 'Duke from the doorway. "You make one hate the outer world."