"We are not accustomed to hear either the
house or the staircase spoken of in those
terms, sir," said Mr. Munder, resolving to
nip the foreigner's familiarity in the bud.
"The Guide to West Cornwall, which you
would have done well to make yourself
acquainted with before you came here,
describes Porthgenna Tower as a Mansion,
and uses the word Spacious, in speaking of
the west staircase. I regret to find, sir, that
you have not consulted the Guide Book to
West Cornwall."

"And why!" rejoined the unabashed German.
"What do I want with a book, when
I have got you for my guide? Ah, dear sir,
but you are not just to yourself! Is not a
living guide like you, who talks and walks
about, better for me than dead leaves of
print and paper? Ah, no, no! I shall not
hear another word— I shall not hear you do
any more injustice to yourself." Here Uncle
Joseph made another fantastic bow, looked
up smiling into the steward's face, and shook
his head several times with an air of friendly
reproach.

Mr. Munder felt paralysed. He could not
have been treated with more easy and
indifferent familiarity if this obscure foreign
stranger had been an English duke. He had
often heard of the climax of audacity; and
here it was visibly and marvellously
embodied in one small, elderly individual who
did not rise quite five feet from the ground
he stood on!

While the steward was swelling with a
sense of injury too large for utterance, the
housekeeper, followed by Sarah, was slowly
ascending the stairs. Uncle Joseph seeing
them go up, hastened to join his niece, and
Mr. Munder, after waiting a little while on
the mat to recover himself, followed the
audacious foreigner with the intention of
watching his conduct narrowly, and chastising
his insolence at the first opportunity with
stinging words of rebuke.

The procession up the stairs thus formed, was
not, however, closed by the steward: it was
further adorned and completed by Betsey, the
servant-maid, who stole out of the kitchen to
follow the strange visitors over the house, as
closely as she could without attracting the
notice of Mrs. Pentreath. Betsey had her share
of natural human curiosity and love of change.
No such event as the arrival of strangers
had ever before enlivened the dreary monotony
of Porthgenna Tower, within her experience;
and she was resolved not to stay alone in the
kitchen, while there was a chance of hearing
a stray word of the conversation, or catching
a chance glimpse of the proceedings among
the company up-stairs.

In the meantime, the housekeeper had led
the way as far as the first-floor landing, on
either side of which the principal rooms in
the west front were situated. Sharpened by
fear and suspicion, Sarah's eyes immediately
detected the repairs which had been effected
in the banisters and stairs of the second
flight.

"You have had workmen in the house?"
she said quickly to Mrs. Pentreath.

''You mean on the stairs?" returned the
housekeeper. "Yes, we have had workmen
there."

"And nowhere else?"

"No. But they are wanted in other places
badly enough. Even here, on the best side of
the house, half the bedrooms up-stairs. are
hardly fit to sleep in. They were anything
but comfortable, as I have heard, even in the
late Mrs. Treverton's time; and since she
died—"

The housekeeper stopped with a frown,
and a look of surprise. The lady in the
quiet dress, instead of sustaining the reputation
for good manners which had been
conferred on her in Mrs. Frankland's letter,
was guilty of the unpardonable discourtesy
of turning away from Mrs. Pentreath before
she had done speaking. Determined not to
allow herself to be impertinently silenced in
that way, she coldly and distinctly repeated
her last words:—

"And since Mrs. Treverton died—"

She was interrupted for the second time.
The strange lady quickly turning round again,
confronted her with a very pale face and a
very eager look, and asked, in the most
abrupt manner, an utterly irrelevant question.

"Tell me about that ghost-story," she
said. "Do they say it is the ghost of a man,
or of a woman?"

"I was speaking of the late Mrs. Treverton,"
said the housekeeper in her severest
tones of reproof, "and not of the ghost-story
about the north rooms. You would have
known that, if you had done me the favour
to listen to what I said."

"I beg your pardon; I beg your pardon a
thousand times for seeming inattentive! It
struck me just then— or, at least I wanted
to know—"

"If you care to know about anything so
absurd," said Mrs. Pentreath, mollified by
the evident sincerity of the apology that had
been offered to her, "the ghost, according to
the story, is the ghost of a woman."

The strange lady's face grew whiter than
ever; and she turned away once more to the
open window on the landing.

"How hot it is!" she said, putting her
head out into the air.

"Hot, with a north-east wind!" exclaimed
Mrs. Pentreath, in amazement.

Here Uncle Joseph came forward with a
polite request to know, when they were going
to look over the rooms. For the last few
minutes he had been asking all sorts of
questions of Mr. Munder; and, having
received no answers which were not of the
shortest and most ungracious kind, had given
up talking to the steward in despair.

Mrs. Pentreath prepared to lead the way
into the breakfast-room, library, and drawing-room