"Now tell me," said Mr Bevan, they were walking in the garden after luncheon, "tell me, Cousin Fanny"—Miss Lambert, had vanished with the B?llinger—"don't you think your father is a little bit—er—extravagant?"

"He may be a bit extravagant," murmured Fanny, plucking a huge daisy and putting it in her belt. "But then—he is such a dear, and I know he tries to economise all he can, he sold the carriage and horse only a month ago, and just look at the garden! he wont go to the expense of a gardener but does it all himself; it would be disgraceful only it's so lovely, with all the things running wild; see, here is one of his garden gloves."

She picked a glove out of a thorn bush and kissed it, and put it in her pocket.

"He does the garden himself!"

"He and James."

"You don't mean——"

"Mr Isaacs' man, they have dug up a lot of ground over there and planted asparagus.[Pg 63] James was a gardener once, but as I have told you, he had misfortunes and had to take to the law. He is awfully poor, and his wife is ill; they live in a little street near Artesian Road, and father has been to see her; he came with me, and we brought her some wine; I carried it in a basket. See, is not that a beautiful rose?" she smiled at the rose, and Charles could not but admire her beauty.

"And then," resumed Fanny, the smile fading as the wind turned the rose's face away, "father is so unfortunate, all the people he lends money to won't pay him back, and stocks and shares and things go up and down, and always the wrong way, so he says, and he gets into such a rage with the house because he can't mortgage it—it was left in trust for me—and we can't let it, so we have to live in it."

"Why can you not let it?"

"Because of the ghost."

"Good gracious goodness!" gobbled Charles, taking the cigar from his mouth. "What nonsense are you talking, Cousin Fanny? Ghost! there are no such things as ghosts."

"Aren't there?" said Fanny. "I wish you saw our one."

"Do you really mean to try to make me[Pg 64] believe——" cried Charles, then he foundered, tied up in his own vile English.

"We did let it once, a year ago, to a Major Sawyer," said Fanny, and she smiled down the garden path at some presumably pleasant vision. "It was in May; we let it to him for three months and went down to Ramsgate to economise. Major Sawyer moved in on a Friday; I remember that, for the next day was Saturday, and I shall never forget that Saturday.

"We were sitting at breakfast, when a telegram was brought, it was from the Major, and it was from the South Kensington Hotel; it said, as well as I can remember, 'Call without a moment's delay.'"

"Of course we thought 'The Laurels' were burnt down, and you can fancy the fright we were in, for it's not insured—at least the furniture isn't."

"Not insured!" groaned Charles.

"No; father says houses never catch fire if they are not insured, and he wouldn't trust himself not to set it on fire if it was insured, so it's not insured."

"Go on."

"Let us sit down on this seat. Well, of[Pg 65] course we thought we were ruined, and father was perfectly wild to get up to town and know the worst, he can't stand suspense. He wanted to take a special train, and there was a terrible scene at the station; you know we have Irish blood in us: his mother was Irish, and Fanny Lambert, my great-grandmother, the one that hung herself, was an Irishwoman. There was a terrible scene at the station, because they wouldn't take father's cheque for the extra twenty-five pounds for the special train. 'I tell you I'm ruined,' said father, but the station-master, a horrible little man with whiskers, said he couldn't help that. Oh! the world is horribly cold and cruel," said Fanny, drawing closer to her companion, "when one is in a strange place, where one doesn't know people. Once father gets to know people he can do anything with them, for every one loves him. The wife of the hotel-keeper where we stayed in Paris wept when we had to go away without our luggage."

"I should think so."

"You see we only took half of the money we got from Mr Isaacs to Paris; we locked half of it up in the bureau in the library for fear we would spend it, then when the [Pg 66]fortnight was up we hadn't enough for the bill. Father wanted to leave Boy-Boy, but they said they'd sooner keep the luggage. They were very nice over it, the hotel-keeper and his wife, but people are horrid when they don't know one.

"Well, we came by a later train, and found Major Sawyer waiting for us at the South Kensington Hotel. He was such a funny old man with fiery eyes and white hair that stood up. We did not see Mrs Sawyer, so we supposed she had been burnt in the fire; but we scarcely had time to think, for the Major began to abuse father for having let him such a house.

"I was awfully frightened, and father listened to the abuse quite meekly, you see he thought Mrs Sawyer was burnt. Then it came out that there had been no fire, and I saw father lift up his head, and put his chin out, and I stopped my ears and shut my eyes."

"I suppose he gave it to old Sawyer."

"Didn't he! Mrs Sawyer told me afterwards that the Major had never been spoken to so before since he left school, and that it had done him a world of good—poor old thing!"

[Pg 67]

"But what was it all about—I mean what made him leave the house?"

"Why, the ghost, to be sure. The first night he was in the house he went poking about looking for burglars, and saw it or heard it, I forget which; they say he did not stop running till he reached the police station, and that's nearly a mile away, and he wouldn't come back but took a cab to the hotel in his pyjamas. But the funny thing is, that ever since the day father abused him, he has been our best friend; he's helped us in money matters lots of times, and he always sends us hares and things when he goes shooting. The ghost always brings us luck when she can—always."

"You believe in Luck?"

"I believe in everything, so does father."

"And this ghost, it's a 'she' you said, I think?"

"It's Fanny Lambert."

"Oh!"

"My great-grandmother."

"Tell me about her," said Charles, lighting a new cigar and leaning back luxuriously on the seat.

The seat was under a chestnut tree,[Pg 68] before them lay a little wilderness, sunflowers unburst from the bud, stocks, and clove pinks.

In its centre stood a moss-grown sun-dial bearing this old dial inscription in Latin, "The hours pass and are numbered." From this wilderness of a garden came the drone of bees, a dreamy sound that seemed to refute the motto upon the dial.

"She lived," said Fanny, "a hundred, or maybe two hundred, years ago; anyhow it was in the time of the Regency—and I wish to goodness I had lived then."

"Why?"

"Oh, it must have been such fun."

"How do you know about the time of the Regency?"

"I have read about it in the library, there are a lot of old books about it, and one of them is in handwriting, not in print. You know in those times the Lamberts lived here at 'The Laurels,' just as we do, that's what makes the house so old; and the Prince Regent used to drive up here in a carriage and pair of coal-black horses. He was in love with Mrs Lambert, and she was in love with him. I don't wonder at her."

[Pg............