pipes, and other vulgar necessities--were exactly those pleading
in its favor with two romantic Americans perversely in search of
the economic drawbacks which were associated, in their tradition,
with unusual architectural felicities.

"I should never believe I was living in an old house unless I was
thoroughly uncomfortable," Ned Boyne, the more extravagant of the
two, had jocosely insisted; "the least hint of 'convenience'
would make me think it had been bought out of an exhibition, with
the pieces numbered, and set up again." And they had proceeded
to enumerate, with humorous precision, their various suspicions
and exactions, refusing to believe that the house their cousin
recommended was REALLY Tudor till they learned it had no heating
system, or that the village church was literally in the grounds
till she assured them of the deplorable uncertainty of the water-
supply.

"It's too uncomfortable to be true!" Edward Boyne had continued
to exult as the avowal of each disadvantage was successively
wrung from her; but he had cut short his rhapsody to ask, with a
sudden relapse to distrust: "And the ghost? You've been
concealing from us the fact that there is no ghost!"

Mary, at the moment, had laughed with him, yet almost with her
laugh, being possessed of several sets of independent
perceptions, had noted a sudden flatness of tone in Alida's
answering hilarity.

"Oh, Dorsetshire's full of ghosts, you know."