house of Oglethorpe with woe and sea-water.

As for the heir of Harrowby, his success in coping with a ghost has made
him famous, a fame that still lingers about him, although his victory took
place some twenty years ago; and so far from being unpopular with the fair
sex, as he was when we first knew him, he has not only been married twice,
but is to lead a third bride to the altar before the year is out.




THE SPECTRE COOK OF BANGLETOP


I

For the purposes of this bit of history, Bangletop Hall stands upon a
grassy knoll on the left bank of the River Dee, about eighteen miles
from the quaint old city of Chester. It does not in reality stand there,
nor has it ever done so, but consideration for the interests of the
living compels me to conceal its exact location, and so to befog the
public as to its whereabouts that its identity may never be revealed to
its disadvantage. It is a rentable property, and were it known that it
has had a mystery connected with it of so deep, dark, and eerie a nature
as that about to be related, I fear that its usefulness, save as an
accessory to romance, would be seriously impaired, and that as an
investment it would become practically worthless.

The hall is a fair specimen of the architecture which prevailed at the
time of Edward the Confessor; that is to say, the main portion of the