Page:Ghostly Tales - FitzClarence - 1896.djvu/15

 A DOUBLE.

THE names of my individuals are fictitious, but the rest of my little narrative is true. The people who figure in it are alive, and indeed friends of mine; and although I have altered the widow’s name, I have retained its peculiarity, — namely, that it is a male Christian name with an ‘s’ attached to it; and the fact that it is by no means a common name sharpens the little mystery — such names as “Jacks,” “Franks,” “Toms,” being certainly less usual than most others.

To begin then: Mrs. de Courcy lived, at the time of my story, in a pretty little house in Bayswater. She settled there at first with three lovely daughters, but two of them

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