the beds to be made. There is a third room
on the right hand, which communicates with
the day-nursery. I think we might manage
to establish ourselves very comfortably in the
three rooms — if you felt no objection —
though they are not so large or so grandly
furnished as the company-bedrooms. I will
change the arrangement if you like—but the
house looks rather lonesome and dreary, just
at first—and my heart warms to the old
nursery—and I think we might at least try
it, to begin with, don't you, Lenny?"

Mr. Frankland was quite of his wife's
opinion, and was ready to accede to any
domestic arrangements that she might think
fit to make. While he was assuring her of
this, the tea came up; and the sight of it
helped to restore Rosamond to her usual
spirits. When the meal was over, she
occupied herself in seeing the baby comfortably
established for the night, in the room on the
right hand which communicated with the
day-nursery. That maternal duty performed,
she came back to her husband in the drawing-
room; and the conversation between them,
turned—as it almost always turned, now,
when they were alone—on the two perplexing
subjects of Mrs. Jazeph and the Myrtle Room.

"I wish it was not night," said Rosamond.
"I should like to begin exploring at once.
Mind, Lenny, you must be with me in
all my investigations. I lend you my eyes,
and you give me your advice. You must
never lose patience, and never tell me that
you can be of no use. I look to you to keep
up my courage, as well as to help me with
advice. How I do wish we were starting on
our voyage of discovery at this very moment!
But we may make inquiries at any rate," she
continued, ringing the bell. "Let us have the
housekeeper and the steward up, and try if
we can't make them tell us something more
than they told us in their letter."

The bell was answered by Betsey. Rosamond
desired that Mr. Munder and Mrs.
Pentreath might be sent up-stairs. Betsey,
having heard Mrs. Frankland express her
intention of questioning the housekeeper and
the steward, guessed why they were wanted,
and smiled mysteriously.

"Did you see anything of those strange
visitors who behaved so oddly?" asked
Rosamond, detecting the smile. "Yes, I am sure
you did. Tell us what you saw. We want
to hear everything that happened—
everything down to the smallest trifle."

Appealed to in these direct terms, Betsey
contrived, with, much circumlocution and
confusion, to relate what her own personal
experience had been of the proceedings of
Mrs. Jazeph and her foreign companion.
When she had done, Rosamond stopped her
on her way to the door, by asking this
question:—

"You say the lady was found lying in a
fainting fit at the top of the stairs. Have
you any notion, Betsey, why she fainted?"

The servant hesitated.

"Come! come!" said Rosamond. "You
have some notion, I can see. Tell us what it
is."

"I'm afraid you will be angry with me,
ma'am," said Betsey, expressing embarrassment
by drawing lines slowly with her
forefinger on a table at her side.

"Nonsense! I shall only be angry with
you, if you won't speak. Why do you think
the lady fainted?"

Betsey drew a very long line with her
embarrassed forefinger, wiped it afterwards
on her apron, and answered:—

"I think she fainted, if you please, ma'am,
because she see the ghost."

"The ghost! What! is there a ghost in
the house? Lenny, here is a romance that
we never expected. What sort of ghost is
it? Let us have the whole story."

The whole story, as Betsey told it, was
not of a nature to afford her hearers any
extraordinary information, or to keep them
very long in suspense. The ghost was a lady,
who had been at a remote period the wife of
one of the owners of Porthgenna Tower, and
who had been guilty of deceiving her
husband in some way unknown. She had been
condemned in consequence to walk about the
north rooms, as long as ever the walls of
them held together. She had long curling
light-brown hair, and very white teeth, and
a dimple in each cheek, and was altogether
"awful beautiful" to look at. Her approach
was heralded to any mortal creature who
was unfortunate enough to fall in her way,
by the blowing of a cold wind; and nobody
who had once felt that wind had the slightest
chance of ever feeling warm again. That
was all Betsey knew about the ghost; and
it was in her opinion enough to freeze a
person's blood only to think of it.

Rosamond smiled, then looked grave again.
"I wish you could have told us a little more,"
she said. "But, as you cannot, we must try
Mrs. Pentreath and Mr. Munder, next. Send
them up here, if you please, Betsey, as soon
as you get down stairs."

The examination of the housekeeper and
the steward led to no result whatever.
Nothing more than they had already
communicated in their letter to Mrs. Frankland
could be extracted from either of them.
Mr. Munder's dominant idea was, that the
foreigner had entered the doors of
Porthgenna Tower with felonious ideas on the
subject of the family plate. Mrs. Pentreath
concurred in that opinion, and mentioned, in
connection with it, her own private impression
that the lady in the quiet dress was an
unfortunate person who had escaped from a
madhouse. As to giving a word of advice,
or suggesting a plan for solving the mystery,
neither the housekeeper nor the steward
appeared to think that the rendering of any
assistance of that sort lay at all within their
province. They took their own practical