sixpence afterward for each operation. The pull was soon forgotten;
the sixpence lived on gratefully in a child's warm memory.

'Tell it,' she said; 'we give you leave. We won't interrupt you
unless you put in too many inventions.'

'You invite me to break the first law of storytelling, Miss Rose,'
said the doctor, lifting a finger at her. 'Every man is bound to
leave a story better than he found it. However, I couldn't tell
it if I would. I don't know what makes the poor ghost walk; and
if you do, I shall say you invent. But at any rate there is a
ghost, and she walks along the side of High Fell at midnight every
Midsummer day. If you see her and she passes you in silence, why
you only got a fright for your pains. But if she speaks to you,
you die within the year. Old John Backhouse is a widower with one
daughter. This girl saw the ghost last Midsummer day, and Miss
Leyburn and I are now doing our best to keep her alive over the
next; but with very small prospect of success.'

'What is the girl dying of?--fright?' asked Mrs. Seaton harshly.

'Oh, no!' said the doctor hastily, 'not precisely. A sad story;
better not inquire into it. But at the present moment the time of
her death seeing likely to be determined by the strength of her own
and other people's belief in the ghost's summons.'

Mrs. Seaton's grim mouth relaxed into an ungenial smile. She put
up her eye-glass and looked at Catherine. 'An unpleasant household,
I should imagine,' she said shortly, 'for a young lady to visit.'