empty, echoing rooms at our own will. We furnished them handsomely in
later Queen Anne style, of which my father was a connoisseur, sparing
no necessary expense; for, as my father observed, good furniture is
always worth its price, while to buy cheap is pure waste of money.

"This," said my father, on the second floor, stepping from the bedroom
into the smaller room adjoining, "I shall make your mother's boudoir.
We will have the walls in lavender and maple green--she is fond of
soft tones--and the window looks out upon the gardens. There we will
put her writing-table."

My own bedroom was on the third floor, a sunny little room.

"You will be quiet here," said my father, "and we can shut out the bed
and the washstand with a screen."

Later, I came to occupy it; though its rent--eight and sixpence a
week, including attendance--was somewhat more than at the time I ought
to have afforded. Nevertheless, I adventured it, taking the
opportunity of being an inmate of the house to refurnish it, unknown
to my stout landlady, in later Queen Anne style, putting a neat brass
plate with my father's name upon the door. "Luke Kelver, Solicitor.
Office hours, 10 till 4." A medical student thought he occupied my
mother's boudoir. He was a dull dog, full of tiresome talk. But I
made acquaintanceship with him; and often of an evening would smoke my
pipe there in silence while pretending to be listening to his
monotonous brag.

The poor thing! he had no idea that he was only a foolish ghost; that
his walls, seemingly covered with coarse-coloured prints of