“If there were ghosts,” she said, “this would be one.”
“If there were ghosts,” said Miss Prudence Boggs, “this would be the ghost of Lydia Carew.”
The twilight was settling into blackness, and Miss Boggs nervously lit the gas while Miss Prudence ran for other tea-cups, preferring, for reasons superfluous to mention, not to drink out of the Carew china that evening.
The next day, on taking up her embroidery frame, Miss Boggs found a number of oldfashioned cross-stitches added to her Kensington. Prudence, she knew, would never have degraded herself by taking a cross-stitch, and the parlor-maid was above taking such a liberty. Miss Boggs mentioned the incident that night at a dinner given by an ancient friend of the Carews.
“Oh, that's the work of Lydia Carew, without a doubt!” cried the hostess. “She visits every new family that moves to the house, but she never remains more than a week or two with any one.”
“It must be that she disapproves of them,” suggested Miss Boggs.
“I think that's it,” said the hostess. “She doesn't like their china, or their fiction.”
“I hope she'll disapprove of us,” added Miss Prudence.
The hostess belonged to a very old Philadelphian family, and she shook her head.
“I should say it was a compliment for even the ghost of Miss Lydia Carew to approve of one,” she said severely.