days after, the play begins again.'

'An improving spectacle for the valley,' said Mrs. Seaton dryly.

'Oh, my dear madam,' said the doctor, shrugging his shoulders, 'we
can't all be so virtuous. If old Jim is a drunkard, he has got a
heart of his own somewhere, and can nurse a dying niece like a
woman. Miss Leyburn can tell us something about that.'

And he turned round to his neighbor with a complete change of
expression, and a voice that had a new note in it of affectionate
respect. Catherine colored as if she did not like being addressed
on the subject, and just nodded a little with gentle affirmative
eyes.

'A strange case.' said Dr. Baker again looking at Elsmere. It is
a family that is original and old-world even in its ways of dying.
I have been a doctor in these parts for five-and-twenty years. I
have seen what you may call old Westmoreland die out--costume,
dialect, superstitions. At least, as to dialect, the people have
become bilingual. I sometimes think they talk it to each other as
much as ever, but some of them won't talk it to you and me at all.
And as to superstitions, the only ghost story I know that still
has some hold on popular belief is the one which attaches to this
mountain here, High Fell, at the end of this valley.'

He paused a moment. A salutary sense has begun to penetrate even
modern provincial society, that no man may tell a ghost story without
leave. Rose threw a merry glance at him. They two were very old
friends. Dr. Baker had pulled out her first teeth and given her a