'It was,' said Laura, 'a banshee story in Eveleen de Courcy's last letter.'
'I never like telling ghost stories to people who don't believe in them,' half whispered Amabel to her sister.
'Do you believe them?' asked Philip, looking full at her.
'Now I won't have little Amy asked the sort of question she most dislikes,' interposed Laura; 'I had rather ask if you laugh at us for thinking many ghost stories inexplicable?'
'Certainly not.'
'The universal belief could hardly be kept up without some grounds,' said Guy.
'That would apply as well to fairies,' said Philip.
'Every one has an unexplained ghost story,' said Amy.
'Yes,' said Philip; 'but I would give something to meet any one whose ghost story did not rest on the testimony of a friend's cousin's cousin, a very strong-minded person.'
'I can't imagine how a person who has seen a ghost could ever speak of it,' said Amy.
'Did you not tell us a story of pixies at Redclyffe?' said Laura.
'O yes; the people there believe in them firmly. Jonas Ledbury heard them laughing one night when he could not get the gate open,' said Guy.
'Ah! You are the authority for ghosts,' said Philip.
'I forgot that,' said Laura: 'I wonder we never asked you about your Redclyffe ghost.'
'You look as if you had seen it yourself,' said Philip.
'You have not?' exclaimed Amy, almost frightened.
'Come, let us have the whole story,' said Philip. 'Was it your own reflection in the glass? was it old sir Hugh? or was it the murderer of Becket? Come, the ladies are both ready to scream at the right moment. Never mind about giving him a cocked-hat, for with whom may you take a liberty, if not with an ancestral ghost of your own?'
Amy could not think how Philip could have gone on all this time; perhaps it was because he was not watching how Guy's colour varied, how he bit his lip; and at last his eyes seemed to grow dark in the middle, and to sparkle with fire, as with a low, deep tone, like distant thunder, conveying a tremendous force of suppressed passion, he exclaimed, 'Beware of trifling--' then breaking off hastened out of the room.
'What's the matter?' asked Mr. Edmonstone, startled from his nap; and his wife looked up anxiously, but returned to her book, as her nephew replied, 'Nothing.'
'How could you Philip?' said Laura.
'I really believe he has seen it!' said Amy, in a startled whisper.