"I will promise for her," said the old man, putting his hand over Golden's pouting and rebellious mouth. "She will not be naughty any more!" "See that she keeps the promise," his son replied, sternly, as he turned away. He went to Elinor's _boudoir_ where he found his two daughters quarreling over Bertram Chesleigh. "I tell you he admires me the most," exclaimed the elder girl, angrily, just as her father threw the necklace and the brocade into her lap, and said, triumphantly: "Here is the finery the ghost wore, my dears. Divide it between you." The brocade was thrown down in disgust, but a pitched battle ensued over the pearl necklace. "I am the elder, and I am determined to have it," cried Elinor, resolutely. "I shall have it myself, if I perish in the effort," retorted Clare. A wordy war ensued, from which John Glenalvan, to whom it was nothing new, retreated in disgust. The contest was ended at last by the handsome Elinor's boxing the ears of her sister, and taking possession of the spoil on the barbarous principle of "might is right." CHAPTER VI. "Did I dream the whole thing?" said Bertram Chesleigh to himself, "or was it, indeed, only a ghost that I kissed on the border of the lake? Do ghosts have warm, living flesh and blood, and balmy lips, and blushes that come and go, and delicious little tempers, and the power to thrill one's nerves with quivering darts of fire? Have I lost my heart to a phantom?" He might well ask himself these questions. A day and night had gone since the Glenalvans had their little party, and so far he had been unable to learn anything at all concerning the beautiful girl whom all but himself believed to have been the ghost of the dead Erma Glenalvan. As he had promised to keep little Golden's secret inviolate, he could of course make no opening inquiries, but his little, careless, artful speeches, and innocent inquiries all failed of effect. He could learn nothing of the maid whose beauty and grace had literally carried his heart by storm. It seemed quite plain that she did not live in the house. It was equally certain that she did not reside in the neighborhood, for his friend, young Fred Glenalvan, had often assured him that his father's family were the only living descendants of the once numerous race. Mr. Chesleigh asked himself if there was indeed a mystery, or if he had been fooled by an elfish spirit from the world of shadows. His heart and his reason answered in the negative. It was a human being, warm, breathing, living, whom he had clasped and kissed that night. His veins tingled with electric fire at the remembrance.