"Am I?" responded the other in the same tone; "I have, howewer, seen no ghost, but a spiwit of gwace and beauty."
"Where?" asked the others, in a breath.
"Ask Randolph," said Vellumy; "I newer tell tales out of school."
"Pshaw!" answered the host, giving a half-frowning look at his friend, "there's not a living woman here, that I ever see, now the women folk and their maids have departed."
"Talking of that," said Burton, "when do you become one apart from us—a respectable married man?"
"Probably never," was the decided reply. "Lady Dora frowns upon my suit; and——"
"You have little pressed it of late," hazarded some one.
"I never saw two less like lovers than you were, down here the other day."
"By George, no!" cried Burton; "you were always running up to town—there must be some magnet there, I fear. Lady Dora should look to it."
Vellumy laughed aloud.