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THE GOLDEN AGE with hair-brushes and things and drive 'em out; but there's nothing else in them that I know of.'

'O, but there must be more than bats,' he cried. 'Don't tell me there are no ghosts. I shall be deeply disappointed if there aren't any ghosts.'

I did not think it worth while to reply, feeling really unequal to this sort of conversation. Besides, we were nearing the house, when my task would be ended. Aunt Eliza met us at the door, and in the cross-fire of adjectives that ensued—both of them talking at once, as grown-up folk have a habit of doing—we two slipped round to the back of the house, and speedily put several broad acres between us and civilisation, for fear of being ordered in to tea in the drawing-room. By the time we returned, our new importation had gone up to dress for dinner, so till the morrow at least we were free of him.

Meanwhile the March wind, after dropping a while at sundown, had been steadily increasing in volume; and although I fell asleep at my 210