"Thanks to you, sister—thanks, too, to Grétry for a pleasant ditty. Now, don't let us have candles. Shall we have ghost stories?"
"What! in a haunted house?"
"The very thing," cried Paul; "let us have all the story of the Ghost of Holyoke. I never heard it properly."
Ellen was busy at her harpsichord again, with fragments from a Stabat Mater. Not Rossini's luscious lamentation, but the deep pathos of that Italian, who in days past "mœrebat et dolebat," who moved the people with his master-piece, and was stabbed to death by a rival at the cathedral door.
"Why, Ellen, you look as if you feared the ghosts."
"No, no," she said; "we know it is an idle tale. Go to the fire, Paul, and I will keep you solemn with the harpsichord, in order that you may not laugh while Margaret is telling it."
"Well, then," began Margaret, "of course this story is all nonsense."
"Of course it is," said I.
"Of course it is," said Paul.
Ellen continued playing.