Page:Cuthbert Bede--Little Mr Bouncer and Tales of College Life.djvu/254

234 man very like me. Perhaps it 's my wraith like the gentleman who so inopportunely appeared to Mrs. Auld Robin Gray. 'I saw my Jamie's wraith, but I could not think it he, until'—etcetera and so forth!" "At any rate," said Fanny, laughing, "I am quite in her position, for I can scarcely think it you. It is only just now that I was certified of the fact that you were, at the present time, some seventy miles from here."

"Yes! but don't you remember the Corsican Brothers? and have you forgotten that never-to-be-forgotten night of happiness when we went to the Haymarket, and saw Planchè's capital burlesque, and heard that killing imitation of Charles Kean—

Have you forgotten that puzzling position of pronouns? There are queer things in the drama of life, as well as in that of the stage; and perhaps, after all, I am not myself!"

"Well! if it is you," laughed Fanny, "I hope I see you well—as people say; for I was certainly under the delusion, not only that you were at this present time in Oxford, but that you were very ill there."

"And so I am, my dear Fanny!" replied Percie, with mock gravity; "so I am—very ill indeed—æger. But my ghost, who is now addressing you, is pretty well, thank you."

"I am pleased to hear it, Mr. Ghost," said Miss Fanny; "for your Ghostship's Papa left this room not half-an-hour since, after giving me a most touching and affecting narrative of the malady under which your Ghostship was supposed to be labouring; and,"