“Now look at the accommodation I have for you, and tell me if you think it will do,” called out Mrs. Garth’s rich voice from a room which she and Mrs. Marshall had just entered. “I have only two spare bedrooms, which open out of this dressing-room,” she continued. “I had intended the large room for Madge, and the small one for May, but I am afraid I must ask two of you to use one bedroom jointly.”
“Oh, how delightful!” exclaimed May, who was evidently a very impulsive young lady. “Madge can have the small room, and Dora and I will sleep in the other. I may call you Dora, mayn’t I? I hate ceremony, and, do you know, I have taken quite a fancy to you.”
Of course all Miss May’s propositions were cheerfully acquiesced in, and we were all three soon occupied in unpacking our dinner-gowns. In the dressing-room a cozy little fire shed its comforting rays upon the pretty furniture and draperies, and gave an aspect of cheerfulness to the place which was by no means reflected in my own heart, though I strove to banish all outward semblance of dejection.
“Fancy a fire in June!” laughed May, as she insisted I should at once call her. “It strikes a Londoner as rather odd; but, do you know, I’m not at all sure that it isn’t quite cool down here. I gather that you are a native of these parts, Dora. Is it a usual thing to need fires in summer?”
“At the Grange,” I replied, as I fastened the dinner-dress which I would rather have been excused from wearing this evening, as I was both tired and overwrought, and would gladly have gone to bed, “at the Grange we seem to need fires all the year round in some of the rooms. Some parts of the neighborhood are inclined to be rather marshy and damp, and as coals are cheap about here, nearly everybody keeps the chills off in the only possible way.”
“Good gracious! I hope it isn’t a fever-and-ague sort of a neighborhood! What shall we do if it is? We are invited down here for a month, but if there is any danger in that direction, I shall betake myself off again. Fancy jerking your limbs first in one direction and then in another, and pulling grimaces at people just at the very moment when you want to be most polite! It’s too awful to think about, and I dare not risk it.”
“Why, you goose,” exclaimed Mrs. Marshall, “you are mixing up fever-and-ague with an entirely different complaint, called St. Vitus’s Dance. It is a nervous affection, not likely to be brought on by a chill.”
“And,” I added, “I don’t think you need alarm yourself about fever-and-ague, either. None of the Garth household have ever been troubled with it, and we have always enjoyed the same immunity at the Grange.”
“The Grange. That’s where you live, isn’t it?” inquired May. “It sounds quite old-worldish and jolly. I can fancy all sorts of spirits and hobgoblins disporting in its interminable corridors and secret chambers. What is the ghost like? Is it a woman dressed in gray silk, and with a heartbroken look on a beautiful face? And does she wring her hands, and cry, ‘Woe is me!’ Or is it a man, looking fierce and vengeful, and dragging clanking chains after him? They are mostly either one or the other, and oh! I forgot, the woman turns into a cat sometimes, and stands mewing over a place where there is a buried treasure. Isn’t it delightful to think of? Dora, you must take me to the Grange, and let me sleep with you one night. Then we’ll watch for the ghost, and perhaps we may solve the mystery of the treasure and become rich beyond the wildest dreams of avarice. And then I’ll write the ghost’s history. Mr. Stoach is great on ghosts lately, but our ghost tale will be much better and much more thrilling than any he has got hold of. I wonder if there are heaps of rubies and pearls and diamonds and sapphires among the treasure. It always is the case. Oh, won’t they be gorgeous! Dora, we must go not later than to-morrow night! I really cannot bear the suspense any longer. What do you say?”
But for a little while I was beyond saying anything, for every time I tried to speak a fit of laughter prevented the utterance of a single intelligible word. Mrs. Marshall, too, though she laughed like one who was more familiar with Miss May’s flights of fancy and vagaries than I was, enjoyed the situation thoroughly.