housekeeper stopped, and looked hard at Mr.
Munder.

"Go on, ma'am," said Mr. Munder, with,
cruel composure.

"Not only on my own account," resumed
Mrs. Pentreath, demurely, "but on yours; for
Mrs. Frankland's letter certainly casts the
responsibility of conducting this delicate business
on your shoulders, as well as on mine."

Mr. Munder recoiled a few steps, turned
red, opened his lips indignantly, hesitated,
and closed them again. He was fairly caught
in a trap of his own setting. He could not
retreat from the responsibility of directing
the housekeeper's conduct, the moment after
he had voluntarily assumed it; and he could
not deny that Mrs. Frankland's letter positively
and repeatedly referred to him by
name. There was only one way of getting
out of the difficulty with dignity, and Mr.
Munder unblushingly took that way, the
moment he had recovered self-possession
enough to collect himself for the effort.

"I am perfectly amazed, Mrs. Pentreath,"
he began, with the gravest dignity. "Yes, I
repeat, I am perfectly amazed, that you
should think me capable of leaving you to
go over the house alone, under such remarkable
circumstances as those we are now placed
in. No, ma'am! whatever my other faults
may be, shrinking from my share of a
responsibility is not one of them. I don't
require to be reminded of Mrs. Frankland's
letter; and— no!— I don't require any apologies.
I am quite ready, ma'am— quite ready
to show the way up-stairs, whenever you are."

"The sooner the better, Mr. Munder— for
there is that audacious old foreigner actually
chattering to Betsey now, as if he had known
her all his life!"

The assertion was quite true. Uncle Joseph
was exercising his gift of familiarity on the
maid-servant (who had lingered to stare at the
strangers, instead of going back to the kitchen),
just as he had already exercised it on the old
lady passenger in the stage-coach, and on the
driver of the pony-chaise, which took his
niece and himself to the post-town of Porthgenna.
While the housekeeper and the
steward were holding their private conference,
he was keeping Betsey in ecstacies of
suppressed giggling by the odd questions
that he asked about the house, and about
how she got on with her work in it. His
inquiries had naturally led from the south
side of the building, by which he and his
companion had entered, to the west side,
which they were shortly to explore; and,
thence, round to the north side, which was
forbidden ground to everybody in the house.
When Mrs. Pentreath came forward with
the steward, she overheard this exchange of
question and answer passing between the
foreigner and the maid:—

"But tell me, Betzi, my dear," said Uncle
Joseph. "Why does nobody ever go into
these mouldy old rooms?"

"Because there's a ghost in them," answered
Betsey, with a burst of laughter, as if a series
of haunted rooms and a series of excellent
jokes meant precisely the same thing.

"Hold your tongue directly, and go back
to the kitchen," cried Mrs. Pentreath, indignantly.
"The ignorant people about here,"
she continued, still pointedly overlooking
Uncle Joseph, and addressing herself only to
Sarah, "tell absurd stories about some old
rooms on the unrepaired side of the house,
which have not been inhabited for more than
half a century past— absurd stories about a
ghost; and my servant is foolish enough to
believe them."

"No, I'm not," said Betsey, retiring, under
protest, to the lower regions. "I don't
believe a word about the ghost— at least, not
in the day-time." Adding that important
saving clause in a whisper, Betsey unwillingly
withdrew from the scene.

Mrs. Pentreath observed with some surprise
that the mysterious lady in the quiet
dress, turned very pale at the mention of the
ghost-story, and made no remark on it whatever.
While she was still wondering what
this meant, Mr. Munder emerged into dignified
prominence, and loftily addressed himself,
not to Uncle Joseph and not to Sarah,
but to the empty air between them.

"If you wish to see the house," he said,
"you will have the goodness to follow me."

With those words, Mr. Munder turned
solemnly into the passage that led to the foot
of the west staircase; walking with that
peculiar slow strut in which all serious-minded
English people indulge when they go out to
take a little exercise on Sunday. The housekeeper
adapting her pace with feminine
pliancy to the pace of the steward, walked
the national Sabbatarian Polonaise by his
side, as if she was out with him for a mouthful
of fresh air, between the services.

"As I am a living sinner, this going over
the house is like going to a funeral!" whispered
Uncle Joseph to his niece. He drew
her arm into his, and felt, as he did so, that
she was trembling.

"What is the matter?" he asked under
his breath.

"Uncle! there is something unnatural
about the readiness of these people to show
us over the house," was the faintly-whispered
answer. " What were they talking
about, just now, out of our hearing? Why
did that woman keep her eyes fixed so
constantly on me?"

Before the old man could answer, the
housekeeper looked round, and begged, with
the severest emphasis, that they would be
good enough to follow. In less than another
minute they were all standing at the foot of
the west staircase.

"Aha!" cried Uncle Joseph, as easy and
talkative as ever, even in the presence of
Mr. Munder himself. "A fine big house,
and a very good staircase."