“Don’t be silly,” Peggy admonished him. “You needn’t look sore, anyhow.”
She led him towards her sister, and left him with her, feeling assured that Sophy would administer an anodyne; Sophy had helped to heal wounds of her making before. She had the knack of putting a man in better conceit with himself; it is a knack which springs from the dictates of a kindly nature.
Peggy herself joined a group of young people who were listening with sceptical amusement to the history of the Hall ghost which Mr Errol, newly arrived, was relating. Peggy seated herself near him.
“Do you believe in ghosts?” she asked.
“Well,” he replied with gravity, “there is so much which is incomprehensible that I cannot discredit things merely because I fail to understand them.”
She looked at him with interest, while the scepticism of the rest strove courteously to efface itself.
“I heard of the ghost from Robert,” she announced. “Hannah has seen it. But Robert didn’t seem to know very much about it. It is respectable to have a ghost. I hope it is a pleasant one.”
“There are two,” he said.
“Good gracious!” exclaimed Peggy. “Two misty apparitions! Hannah doesn’t own to seeing two. I might be able to stand one, but two would be the death of me. Who are they?”
“One is a hound,” he explained; “the other is a lady. They have been seen walking on the terrace in the dusk. They walk the length of the terrace and back, look towards the west, and disappear.”