The stricken deer sighed, but declined to weep upon the shiny bosom of her adorer. ‘It is very sudden,’ she faltered. ‘I—I really never thought there was anything——’ Jabez assured her there had always been a suspicion; that now it had ripened into a fact. For an hour or more the conversation was a mixture of poetical quotations, business suggestions, reminiscences of Mr. Gurth Egerton, and tender declarations in Mr. Duck’s shiniest and sweetest manner. Suddenly there was a loud knock at the door. Mrs. Turvey jumped up from her chair and straightened her cap. ‘Who is it?’ exclaimed Mr. Duck, nervously. ‘Why, it must be Topsey,’ said the lady, after a moment’s thought. ‘Dear me! I’d no idea it was so late. I think you’d better go, Mr. Duck.’ ‘And when shall I call again, Susan?—for your answer.’ Mr. Duck showed his shiny teeth and rolled his shiny eyes so sweetly that Mrs. Turvey could not resist him any more. ‘To-morrow, Jabez.’ There was a soft sound as of the sudden collision of a pair of lips and a cheek, and then Mrs. Turvey, followed by Mr. Duck, went upstairs to the front door. It was Topsey brought back. Mr. Duck bade Mrs. Turvey good-night on the steps as though nothing had happened, for Topsey’s sharp little ears were open, and he went off whistling ‘’Tis my delight on a shiny night,’ and Topsey went downstairs with her aunt. She was full of the ghost. She acted the ghost. She showed her aunty how the ghost looked, and how it rose mysteriously from nothing and walked towards its victim. Mrs. Turvey did not enter very heartily into the scene. She did not like ghosts at any time, but to-night, when her master’s death had been so suddenly communicated to her, she positively hated ghosts. Do what she would, she could not shake off the idea that she was in a dead man’s house. All the stories of uneasy spirits visiting their earthly dwelling-places floated across her brain, and presently she turned sharply to the child, and told her not to chatter but to get ready for bed. They slept on the ground floor, in a room that had been a servant’s room in the days when Mr. Egerton kept up an establishment. Now in her confusion at parting with her elderly admirer right under Topsey’s watchful eye, Mrs. Turvey had forgotten to fasten up the front door. As a matter of fact, she had closed it so carelessly that the lock had not caught at all. She suddenly recollected her omission to examine the fastenings with her usual care, so she sent Topsey to do it, while she got the bread and cheese out of the larder for her frugal supper.