a glowing hearth at their feet; and every one told some strange thing that had happened at first hand, or second or third hand, either to himself or herself, or to their fathers or brothers or grandmothers or old servants.  They were stimulated in eking out these experiences not only by the wildness of the rain without, but by the mystery of being shut off from the library into the drawing-room and hall while the preparations for the following night were beginning.  But weirdness is not inexhaustible, even when shared on such propitious terms between a group of young people rapidly advanced in intimacy by a week’s stay under the same roof, and at the first yawn a gay dispersion of the votaries ended it all.

The yawn came from Bushwick, who boldly owned, when his guilt was brought home to him, that he was sleepy, and then as he expected to be scared out of a year’s growth the next night, and not be able to sleep for a week afterwards, he was now going to bed.  He shook hands with Mrs. Westangle for good-night.  The latest to follow him was Verrian, who, strangely alert, and as far from drowsiness as he had ever known himself, was yet more roused by realizing that Mrs. Westangle was not letting his hand go at once, but, unless it was mere absent-mindedness, was conveying through it the wish to keep him.  She fluttered a little more closely up to him, and twittered out, “Miss Shirley wants me to let you know that she has told me about your coming together, and everything.”

“Oh, I’m very glad,” Verrian said, not sure that it was the right thing.

“I don’t know why she feels so, but she has a right to do as she pleases about it.  She’s not a guest.”

“No,” Verrian assented.

“It happens very well, though, for the ghost-seeing that people don’t know she’s here.  After that I shall tell them.  In fact, she wants me to, for she must be on the lookout for other engagements.  I am going to do everything I can for her, and if you hear of anything—­”

Verrian bowed, with a sense of something offensive in her words which he could not logically feel, since it was a matter of business and was put squarely on a business basis.  “I should be very glad,” he said, noncommittally.

“She was sure from the first,” Mrs. Westangle went on, as if there were some relation between the fact and her request, “that you were not the actor.  She knew you were a writer.”

“Oh, indeed!” Verrian said.

“I thought that if you were writing for the newspapers you might know how to help her-”

“I’m not a newspaper writer,” Verrian answered, with a resentment which she seemed to feel, for she said, with a sort of apology in her tone: 

“Oh!  Well, I don’t suppose it matters.  She doesn’t know I’m speaking to you about that; it just came into my head.  I like to help in a worthy object, you know.  I hope you’ll have a good night’s rest.”

She turned and looked round with the air of distraction which she had after speaking to any one, and which Verrian fancied came as much from a paucity as from a multiplicity of suggestion in her brain, and so left him standing.  But she came back to say, “Of course, it’s all between ourselves till after to-morrow night, Mr. Verrian.”