“You told me you and your friends were fond of creepy stories, Miss Newton,” he said. “Is that really so?”
“Really and truly.”
“And you are none of you afflicted with weak nerves—you are not afraid of being made uncomfortable by the memory of a ghastly story?”
“No. I think that with most of us the cares of life are too real and too absorbing to leave any room in our minds for imaginary horrors. Isn’t it so, now, friends?”
“Lor, yes, Miss Newton,” answered one of the girls briskly: “we’re all of us too busy to worry about ghosts; but I love a ghost tale for all that.”
A chorus of voices echoed this assertion.
“Then, ladies, I shall have the honour of reading the ‘Haunters and the Haunted,’ by Bulwer Lytton.”
The very title of the story thrilled them, and the whole party, just now so noisy with eager talk and frequent laughter, sat breathless, looking at the reader with awe-stricken eyes as that wonderful story slowly unwound itself.
Theodore read well, in that subdued and semi-dramatic style which is best adapted to chamber-reading. He felt what he read, and the horror of the imaginary scene was vividly before his eyes as he got deeper into the story.
The reading lasted nearly two hours, but it was not one moment too long for Theodore’s audience, and there was a sigh of regret when the last words of the story had been spoken.