‘I dare pay some old fool will be after her directly that gets known,’ said Miss Georgina, with a look at Miss Jackson. Jabez protended not to hear, but, turning to George, addressed his conversation specially to him. It was a stormy evening, and the clouds had been gathering threateningly in the sky, with an indication of more violent tempest yet to come. Just as Jabez was minutely describing the appearance of the ghost as seen by Mrs. Turvey, a terrific peal of thunder crashed through the stillness of the night, and vivid flashes of lightning played about the room. With a wild shriek Miss Georgina sprang to her feet. She was the most abject coward in a thunderstorm. Miss Jackson endeavoured to calm her. ‘Oh, Carry, let me go—let me go,’ she cried; ‘lead me to the coal-cellar.’ The company endeavoured to soothe her fears. It wasn’t forked lightning, they assured her. There was no danger. ‘Cover the glasses over, Jabez,’ moaned Georgina, ‘and open the windows, and set the doors ajar, and see there are no knives about. Oh!’ Another terrific peal of thunder wrung this last interjection from Miss Duck. She darted out of the room in a state of collapse, and, seizing a chair, rushed into the coal-cellar with it, and there awaited the abatement of the storm. Jabez explained that his sister was very frightened of lightning, and he hoped the company would excuse her. She always shut herself in the coal-cellar during a thunderstorm. ‘Poor thing!’ sighed Miss Jackson. ‘Spending her birthday in the coal-cellar! Oh, my poor friend!’ Miss Jackson, imagining that a tear ought to be trickling down her nose, was about to produce her handkerchief and wipe it away, when her brother created a diversion which cast the cruel situation of Miss Duck into temporary oblivion. The windows had been flung open to let a current of air through the room and give the lightning egress, and Miss Jackson’s brother was surveying the heavens and mentally composing an ode to Jupiter, when his attention was attracted by a figure on the opposite side of the road. Miss Jackson’s brother had been an attentive listener to the ghost story and Jabez’s description of the ghost’s features, and great, therefore, was his honor at beholding, when the lightning lit the figure up, an exact counterpart of the ghost that appeared to Mrs. Turvey. ‘Lo-o-o-k there!’ he stammered. ‘Wh-ha-t’s th-that?’ Jabez followed the direction of the youth’s trembling finger, and then, with a vigorous ‘Well, I’m blest!’ darted into the hall, seized his hat and rushed across the road. The figure turned and fled. Jabez pursued it. Miss Jackson had rushed down-stairs to whisper through the keyhole of the coal-cellar that a ghost had come to wish Georgina many happy returns of the day, and that Jabez was pursuing it. Georgina came out of the coal-cellar at once. The ghost might come there.