Augustus's eldest girl had been presented only the day before. And Aunt
Clara, Uncle Augustus's wife, you know, who is rather quick, said it
depended whether the minister of the Gospel was a gentleman or a
shoe-black, because Mrs. Donnithorne was attending a dissenting chapel
then where the preacher was quite a common uneducated sort of person.
And after that they would not talk to each other, and, altogether, I
remember, it was very unpleasant. I do think it is such a pity," cried
Lady Atherley with real feeling, "when people will take up these extreme
religious views, as all the Atherleys do. I am sure it is quite a
comfort to have someone like you in the house, Mr. Lyndsay, who is not
particular about religion."

* * * * *

"If this is the best Aunt Eleanour has to show in the way of a ghost,
she does well to keep so quiet about it," was Atherley's comment on that
part of the story which, by special permission, I repeated to him next
day. "I never heard a weaker ghost story. She explains the whole thing
away as she tells it. She was, as she candidly admits, ill and
feverish--sickening for a fever, in fact, when the most rational
person's senses are apt to play them strange tricks. She is alone at the
dead of night in a house she believes to be haunted; and then her
dog--an odious little beast, I remember him well, always barking at
something or nothing;--the dog suggests there is somebody near. She
looks round into a dark part of the room, and naturally, inevitably--all
things considered--sees a ghost. Did you say it wore a ruff and puffed
sleeves?"

"So Mrs. Mostyn said."