“Dear me! Now I have told you who I am, you don’t seem a bit glad to see me? You ought to be, you know!—for I am quite a harmless Ghost—really I am! I wouldn’t frighten you for the world! But you would buy my Chair!—and of course I like to come and sit in it now and then, and think about old times!”
I began to recover myself from the shock of surprise the fascinating appearance had given me, and I said in a faint voice,—
“Oh, is that it! The Sedan-Chair—”
“Is mine!” said the Ghost of the Old-Fashioned Girl; “or rather it used to be mine when I lived in the world and went about in it to balls and parties, you know! I can’t help having a little tenderness for it, because it is so very closely associated with my happy life on earth. Now please don’t stand looking at me so strangely! Sit down, and let us have a little chat in the firelight, won’t you?”
What a sweet voice this Ghost had to be sure! What a delightfully coaxing way of looking and speaking! I could not resist the appealing, half playful glances of her eyes, so I obeyed her suggestion and went back to my seat by the fire, whereupon the Ghost of the Old-Fashioned Girl straightway opened the door of the Sedan-Chair and showed me her entire self, dressed apparently for a Christmas-party. Her white muslin frock was simply hemmed at the bottom, and had three little tucks in it—she wore small low shoes with elastic crossed over fine openwork white stockings—her pretty rounded arms were veiled, but not disguised, by black lace mittens, and her waist was quite carelessly tied in with a narrow strip of blue ribbon. But all this extreme simplicity only served to show the exquisite beauty of her lovely neck and shoulders, which rose out of the little muslin bodice like sculptured snow, and one little wicked knot of violets fastened with a quaint pearl brooch against the beautiful bosom, was enough to make the coldest anchorite forget his prayers and compose a love-sonnet immediately.
“Well!” said the Ghost after a pause, “how do you like me?”
“Very much!” I answered promptly; “I have never seen anyone so pretty as you are in my life!”
The Ghost of the Old-Fashioned Girl smiled, and drawing out a small fan with delicate mother-of-pearl sticks, unfurled it and put it coquettishly before her face.
“That is what all the gentlemen used to say to me when I went about in this Chair,” she observed, “and then they would put their declarations in the lining.”
“In the lining?” I echoed. “You mean—”