two of them each thinking the other was a ghost, and frightened out of their seven senses. So I excused myself, polite like, saying I would speak to my sister, and the rest of the tale you know for yourselves. I taunted her with cowardice to make her rise to the occasion, but that wouldn't work, and time was passing, so I turned to bribery, but by good fortune I'll keep my racket yet. At this very moment she will be feeling her way cautiously down that stair, and he'll be hearing the creak, and coming forward to see the cause. All bluey white they'll be, and each one so scared by the sight of the other that they'll hardly dare to breathe. Listen now while I open the door, and you may hear her squeal." "Patrick O'Shaughnessy, ye graceless boy, how dare you take such a liberty with your sister! A strange man,--an Englishman,--and Esmeralda knowing nothing about him, and believing there is no one near! Let me pass now! Stand aside this moment! Patrick O'Shaughnessy, will you let me pass, or will you not?" "I will not!" returned Pat sturdily. "It's my joke, and I'm not going to have it spoiled. You leave them to fight it out between themselves, and if they come out alive you'll hear the tale first hand. `What do my eyes behold?' says he. `What fairy form is this I see before me?' `Pity me!' says she. `What's that white pillar over there by the window? It's a dust sheet that Molly has been hanging over the curtains, and maybe the draught is making it move. Oh, oh, oh, there's a head to it! It's alive! It comes towards me! What will I do? What will I do?'" Pat clasped his hands in affected terror, and shrieked in clever imitation of his sister's manner. The door was still ajar, and as he stopped a sound from below rose faintly to the ears of his companions, a second shriek so alike in tone and expression that it might have been the echo of his own. "Pixie," cried Bridgie wildly, "at him, Pixie! At him!" And like a flash of lightning Pixie lay prone on the floor with her arms wound tightly round Pat's legs. He swayed and staggered, clutched at the wall, and felt Mademoiselle's arms nip him from behind, as the door flew open, and Bridgie sped like a lapwing along the gallery. CHAPTER TWENTY. THE WHITE LADY. Esmeralda set out on her expedition in the highest spirits, for a girl who is brought up on a regime of outdoor sport is not troubled with nerves, and she laughed at the suggestion of ghosts with the scorn which it deserved. What she did not laugh at, however, was the promise of Pat's racket, a gift to him from an absent godfather, and coveted by all his brothers and sisters, but by none so much as Esmeralda, who played a very pretty game of her own, and felt a conviction that she could distinguish herself still more if she possessed a good racket instead of the old one which had done duty for years, and was now badly sprung.