"Most assuredly, my dear. And I, too, know it is true. I, too, have seen it."
"You—have?"
"Often and often. A most beneficent and harmless ghost. One to be cherished and not feared. One that has suffered much evil and done much good. A ghost I pity and almost love."
"Why, Mr. Winters! You make me feel as if—as if I could hardly breathe. Could any ghost be good? Any ghost be harmless?"
"This one is good, I told you. As for harm—has he harmed your garden by his presence? Have the weeds grown faster or the vegetables less, because of his nightly visitations to it? 'By their fruits ye shall know them.' Eh? What?"
"Why, you amaze me more and more. How did you know that about the garden and the night-time? I hadn't told you yet, though I was going to, in a minute."
"Well, easily. I've seen the garden and I know that all ghosts prefer the night. Not this one because his deeds are evil but because they are good. A person may learn a lot of things, little maid, by merely keeping his eyes open and putting two-and-two together."
"Oh! of course; but do you really think I shouldn't fear this one at all? I've been too afraid almost to live, and I've not dared to tell my father or mother, because she's so nervous she wouldn't stay at Skyrie even to get my father cured, and he must be. He must be—no matter what happens. It must not be that a man so good, so kind, so altogether faithful to us all should be an invalid forever. O Mr. Winters! You don't at all know how brave he is! How he makes fun for mother and me when his own heart aches. It seems to me as if he took hold of everything, every little thing that happens, and turns it over and over, till he finds out some humor in it. Then he points out to us that humor which we'd never have discovered for ourselves. Why, I fancy he'd think there was something funny even about that dreadful ghost!"
"A brave and beautiful nature is poor John Chester's, little Dolly. I am proud to know him, to have him call me friend. Nor should I have called him 'poor' but rich. I would rather have his present poverty and his wholesome, sweet outlook upon life than all the money owned by the master of the Towers. By the way, he's not such a bad sort, either! come to know him well enough to see beneath that crust of greed and arrogance that he wears as if it were a coat. As for that fairy-faced daughter of his, I'm wholly in love with her, since you've put your own hand to the task of remodeling her into the simple, kindly creature God meant her to be when He fashioned her. Pity! when that other good gift of too much money buries beneath it the better side of the person to whom it is given!"
"Oh! Helena is sweet, Mr. Winters. It's not true at all that she is haughty and 'stuck-up,' as folks say. She's just been petted at home, and praised and sheltered so much, that she didn't have a chance to show what she really was. Even to know it herself. But I love her. I love her dearly. She's the nicest girl friend I ever had."