glance at him from under her long lashes. "And--yes, Dora will take
champagne too--when it comes."

"Naughty girl!" exclaims Mrs. Talbot, with a little flickering smile.
Dora Talbot seldom smiles, having learned by experience that her
delicate face looks prettier in repose. "Come, then, Sir Adrian," she
adds, "let us enter your enchanted castle."

The servants by this time have taken in all their luggage--that is, as
much as they have been able to bring in the carriage; and now the two
ladies walk up the steps and enter the hall, their host beside them.

Mrs. Talbot, who has recovered her spirits a little, is chattering
gayly, and monopolizing Sir Adrian to the best of her ability, whilst
Miss Delmaine is strangely silent, and seems lost in a kind of pleased
wonder as she gazes upon all her charming surroundings.

The last rays of light are streaming in through the stained-glass
windows, rendering the old hall full of mysterious beauty. The grim
warriors in their coats of mail seem, to the entranced gaze of Florence
Delmaine, to be making ready to spring from the niches which hold them.

Waking from her dream as she reaches the foot of the stone staircase,
she says abruptly, but with a lovely smile playing round her mouth--

"Surely, Sir Adrian, you have a ghost in this beautiful old place, or
a secret staircase, or at least a bogy of some sort? Do not spoil the
romantic look of it by telling me you have no tale of terror to impart,
no history of a ghostly visitant who walks these halls at the dead of
night."