One might think that these six ghosts might look exactly alike, but not so, for every one had as distinct a personality as though she had not been dead so long that nothing remained but bones. But there was a sort of emanation of some indefinable kind; an atmosphere of some occult property that took the place of flesh and body. In some curious and inexplicable way this gave to each skeleton a separate individuality. Even the lay mind could understand this, and the newspaper man could tell the ghosts apart perfectly well. One of these women was very small, and was clearly as pugnacious as a sparrow and as tenacious as one. The next one was a woman of the stately kind. The third was quite an old one, judging by her teeth, and sitting beside her was one with such beautiful teeth as he had never seen but once, and the sight quite unnerved him, too, for they belonged to the young girl whose wedding had brought him to this strange carnival of ghosts. The sight gave him an agonizing wrench of pain. He wondered how long it would be before she would be like these women, with nothing left of her sweet young beauty but her white and even teeth. This ghost had a way of holding her head to one side and raising her hollow eyeless sockets in what was once a most effective attitude, but it was now but the travesty of itself. The sight filled the young man with deep pity. This ghost was a widow. “Did you say that to me?” The fourth was as tall and angular as any of the two men ghosts without one redeeming trait. She was an old maid. It was easy for the young man to know all these things for some new and occult quality in his nature hitherto unknown gave him a new insight into the personality of the ghost and he saw them as they must have been in life, yet saw them only as ghosts. He sensed these things without knowing how he did so. The old maid ghost told the widow that she had heard that Edwards had been a sad dog in his day, and that gave him added interest, for it must be admitted that women do admire sad dogs. When they were all seated they waited for their teacher to make a beginning. He squared his shoulders, and tried to put his hands in his pockets when he was suddenly brought to a realizing sense that there are no pockets in shrouds. He also began to realize that he had undertaken a greater task than he had thought. He had no money nor chips, and so could not play poker. He looked the picture of misery. He was thinking how he could get out of the place decently. It was the practical old maid who suggested that they should play with beans. She had heard that that was sometimes done. Edwards stifled a groan. When all the other women said that it was impossible to find beans, and that it would be better to use pebbles as the others were doing, the old maid told them to wait a moment, and almost before they missed her she was back with at least a peck of beans of different colors tied up in her shroud.