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“Why you, of course.”

“I never will.”

“Why?”

“Oh, because!”

“Can’t we put off the decision?” I asked.

“Impossible. We must decide to-morrow—to-day I mean.”

“Well, when we meet to-morrow—I mean to-day—with lawyers and chaperones and mothers and relations, give me one word alone with you.”

“Yes,” she answered, with docility.

“Do you know,” she said presently, “I can never respect myself again? To undertake a thing like that, and then be so horribly frightened. Oh! I thought you really were the other ghost.”

“I will tell you a secret,” said I. “I thought you were, and I was much more frightened than you.”

“Oh well,” she said, leaning against my shoulder as a tired child might have done, “if you were frightened too, Cousin Lawrence, I don’t mind so very, very much.”

It was soon afterwards that, cautiously looking out of the parlour window for the twentieth time, I had the happiness of seeing