Arlo Bates

“ The McHugh estate was a beautiful old place in one of the loveliest of New England villages, where the family had been in the ascendancy since prerevolutionary days; Irene was sufficiently fond of Fanny; and she was well aware, in virtue of that intuition which enables women to know so many things, that her friend's brother, Arthur McHugh, would be at home at the time named for the visit. Irene and Lieutenant Arthur McHugh had been so much to each other at one time that they had been to the very verge of a formal engagement, when at the last moment he drew back. ”

“ II. Oldtower stands in a wild and beautiful village, left on one side by modern travel, which has turned away from the turnpike of the fathers to follow the more direct route of the rail. The estate extends for some distance along the bank of the river, which so twists in its windings as almost to make the village an island, and on a knoll overlooking the stream molders the crumbling pile of stone which once was a watch-tower, and from which the place takes its name. ”

“ Watching more sharply, she perceived that while with its right hand it raised its inexhaustible wine-cup, with its left it clung to the back of a chair in an evident endeavor to keep itself down.
"You seem to be standing on tiptoe," she observed. "Were you looking for anything?"
"No," the wraith responded in evident confusion; "that is merely the levitation consequent upon this constant imbibing."
Irene laughed contemptuously. "Do you mean," she demanded unfeelingly, "that the sign of intoxication in a ghost is a tendency to rise into the air?" ”

“ They are poor creatures; and it seems to me that they get feebler the more people refuse to believe in them."
"Oh, you don't suppose," cried Fanny, in the greatest anxiety, "that the major's ghost has faded away, do you? Nobody has slept here for years, so that nobody has seen it for ever so long."
"And you want me to assure it that you think it eminently respectable to have a wraith in the family, so you hope it will persevere in haunting Oldtower?" ”

“ Irene smiled her most persuasive smile. "Do I look like one who would ask unreasonable things?" she asked.
"I am sure that nothing which you should ask could be unreasonable," the ghost replied, with so much gallantry that Irene had for a moment a confused sense of having lost her identity, because to have a ghost complimenting her gave her much the feeling of being a ghost herself.
"And certainly the McHugh diamonds can do you no good now," Miss Gaspic continued, introducing her subject with truly feminine indirectness. ”

“ Miss Gaspic was by no means insensible to the spell of the time and of the companionship in which she found herself, but she was determined above all things to be discreet.
"Arthur," she said, by way of keeping the talk in safe channels and also of finding out what she wanted to know, "was search ever made for the McHugh diamonds?"
"Search!" he repeated. "Everything short of pulling the house down has been tried. Everybody in the family from the time they were lost has had a hand at it."
"I do not see—" began Irene, when he interrupted brusquely. ”

“ The lieutenant was as ardently in love as it is possible for a man to be who is at once a soldier and handsome, and indeed more than would have been expected from a man who combined these two things. The fact that Irene had a great deal of money, while he had none, gave to his passion a hopelessness from his point of view which much increased its fervor. ”

“ Don't you think that it is?"
"You are simply too provoking for anything," Irene responded. "I am sure I never saw a ghost that talked so unintelligibly as you do. What in the world do you mean?"
"Why, only the other day Arthur said in joke that if somebody could only make the major's—" she looked around to indicate the word which she evidently did not care to pronounce in that chamber, and Irene nodded to signify that she understood—"if only somebody could make it tell where the McHugh diamonds are—"
"Oh, that 's it, is it?" interrupted Irene. ”

“ It was a ghost of a conventional period, and it carefully observed all the old-time conditions. Irene, who had been waiting for it, raised her eyes from the book which she had been reading, and examined it carefully. The ghost had the likeness of a handsome man of rather more than middle age and of majestic presence. The figure was dressed in Continental uniform, and in its hand carried a glass apparently full of red wine. As Irene raised her eyes, the ghost bowed gravely and courteously, and then drained the cup to its depth.
"Good evening," Miss Gaspic said politely. "Will you be seated?" ”

“ The house is one of the finest of old colonial mansions, and is beautifully placed upon a terrace half a dozen feet above the level of the ample lawn which surrounds it. Back of the house a trim garden with box hedges as high as the gardener's knee extends down to the river, while in front a lofty hedge shuts off the grounds from the village street. ”

“ Arthur took her into his arms and comforted her, while Fanny discreetly looked the other way; and so the engagement was allowed to stand, although the McHugh diamonds had not been found.
VII. But the next night Irene faced the ghost with an expression of contempt that might have withered the spirit of Hamlet's sire.
"So you think it proper to deceive a lady?" she inquired scornfully. "Is that the way in which the gentlemen of the old school, of which we hear so much, behaved?"
"Why, you should reflect," the wraith responded waveringly, "that you had made me intoxicated." ”