“That is a new view of a ghost to me. An object of art? I should have thought them considerably more suitable objects previous to their disembodiment.”
“Ah! you do not understand. You call art painting, don’t you—or sculpture at most? I give up sculpture certainly—and painting too. But don’t you think a ghost a very effective object in literature now? Confess: do you not like a ghost-story very much?”
“Yes, if it is a very good one.”
“Hamlet now?”
“Ah! we don’t speak of Shakspere’s plays as stories. His characters are so real to us, that, in thinking of their development, we go back even to their fathers and mothers—and sometimes even speculate about their future.”
“You islanders are always in earliest somehow. So are we Germans. We are all one.”
“I hope you can be in earnest about dinner, then, for I hear the bell.”
“We must render ourselves in the drawing-room, then? Yes.”
When they entered the drawing-room, they found Miss Cameron alone. Funkelstein advanced, and addressed a few words to her in German, which Hugh’s limited acquaintance with the language prevented him from catching. At the same moment, Mr. Arnold entered, and Funkelstein, turning to him immediately, proceeded, as if by way of apology for speaking in an unknown tongue, to interpret for Mr. Arnold’s benefit:
“I have just been telling Miss Cameron in the language of my country, how much better she looks than when I saw her at Sir Edward Lastons.”