appears. That night the house was broken into, and the old man was found murdered in his bed. The burglar seems to have been a curious man; he took nothing—not a teaspoon."

[Pg 10]

[Pg 10]

"Good Lord! I am glad I'm not of ancestral family. Which is the room, the room?"

Harry laughed.

"The one at the end of the passage upstairs. Shall I tell them to move your things there?"

"That is true hospitality," said Geoffrey; "but I won't bother you. Do either of them walk?"

"Francis does. So if you meet that gentleman about, and find he is unsubstantial, you will know that you have seen a ghost."

"And if substantial, it will only be your uncle."

"Exactly; so you needn't faint immediately."

Geoffrey got up and examined the picture with more attention.

"If your uncle is like that," he said, "I'm not so sure that I wouldn't sooner meet the ghost."

"I'm afraid it is too late to put him off now," said Harry; "and, unless there is a railway accident, you will certainly meet him at dinner. But I don't understand your objection to my poor old ancestor's portrait. I have always wondered that such an awful old wretch could be made to look so charming."

"There is hell in his eyes!" said Geoffrey.

Harry left his chair and leaned on the chimney-piece also, looking up at the picture.

"Certainly, if you think he looks wicked," he said, "you will see no resemblance between him and my uncle. Uncle Francis is a genial, pink-faced old fellow, with benevolent white hair.[Pg 11] When I used to come down here, years ago, before my father's death, for the holidays, he always used to be awfully good to me. But he has been abroad the last three years, and I haven't seen him. But I remember him as the most charming old man."

[Pg 11]

"Then, in essentials, he 

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