When Ghost Meets Ghost Part 138

"I thought Cis wrote to Dolly in Florence."

"Not the last letter. They were at the Montequattrinis' in May. That's what you're thinking of. Cis wrote to her there, then. It was another letter."

"'Spose I'm wrong! I meant the letter where she told how the very old lady walked with them to the grave."

"Old Mrs. Marrable. Yes--and old Mrs. Alibone had to go in the carriage, because of her foot, or something. She has a bad foot. That was in the middle of June. _That_ letter _was_ to Fiesole. You do get so mixed up."

"Expect I do. Fancy that old lady, though, at ninety-eight!"

"Yes--fancy! Gwen said she was just as strong this year as last. She'll live to be a hundred, I do believe. Why--the other old woman at Chorlton is over seventy! Her daughter--or is it niece? I never know...."

"Didn't Cis say she spoke of her as 'my mother'?"

"No--that was the twin sister that died. But she always spoke _to_ her as 'mother.'"

"Oh ah--that was what Cis couldn't make head or tail of. Rather a puzzling turn out! But I say...."

"What?... Wait till we get out of the noise. What were you going to say?"

"Isn't her head rather ... I mean, doesn't she show signs of...."

"Senile decay? No. What makes you think that?"

"Of course, _I_ don't know. I only go by what our girl said. Of course, Gwen Torrens is still one of the most beautiful women in London--or anywhere, for that matter! And it may have been, nothing but that."

"Oh, I know what you mean now. 'Glorious Angel.' I don't think anything of that.... Isn't that the children there--by the Pelicans?"

It was, apparently. A very handsome young man and a very pretty girl, who must have been only sixteen--as her parents could not be mistaken--but she looked more. Both were evidently enjoying both, extremely; and nothing seemed to be further from their thoughts than losing sight of one another.

Says Mrs. Pellew from her chariot:--"My dear, what an endless time you have been away! I wish you wouldn't. It makes your father so fidgety."

Whereupon each of these two young people says:--"It wasn't me." And either glances furtively at the other. No doubt it was both.

"Never mind which it was now, but tell me about old Mrs. Marrable at Chorlton. I want to know what it was she called your Aunt Gwen."

"Yes--tell about Granny Marrowbone," says the young man.

The girl testifies:--"Her Glorious Angel. When we first went into the Cottage. What she said was:--'Here comes my Glorious Angel!' Well!--why shouldn't she?"

"She _always_ calls her that," says the young man.

"You see, my dear! It has not struck anyone but yourself as anything the least out of the way." Mrs. Pellew then explains to her daughter, not without toleration for an erratic judgment--to wit, her husband's--that that gentleman has got a nonsensical idea into his head that old Mrs.

Marrable is not quite.... Oh no--not that she is _failing_, you know--not at all!... Only, perhaps, not so clear as.... Of course, very old people sometimes do....

The girl looks at the young man for his opinion. He gives it with a cheerful laugh. "What!--Granny Marrowbone off her chump? As sound as you or I! She's called Lady Torrens her Glorious Angel ever since I can recollect. Oh no--_she's_ all right." Whereupon Mr. Pellew says:--"I see--sort of expression. Very applicable, as things go. Oh no--no reason for alarm! Certainly not!"

"You know," says the girl, Cis--who is new, and naturally knows things, and can tell her parents,--"you know there is never the slightest reason for apprehension as long as there is no delusion. Even then we have to discriminate carefully between fixed or permanent delusions and...."

"Shut up, mouse!" says her father. "What's that striking?"

The young man looks at his watch--is afraid it must be seven. The elder supposes that some of the party don't want to be late for dinner. The young lady says:--"Well--I got it all out of a book." And her mother says:--"Now, please don't dawdle any more. Go the short way, and see for the carriage." Whereupon the young people make off at speed up the steps to the terrace, and a brown bear on the top of his pole thinks they are hurrying to give him a bun, and is disillusioned. Mr. Pellew accompanies his wife, but as they go quick they do not talk, and the story hears no further disconnected chat. Nor does it hear any more when the turnstiles are pa.s.sed and the carriage is reached.

Soon out of sight--that carriage! And with it vanishes the last chance of knowing any more of Dave and Dolly and their country Granny. And when the present writer went to look for Sapps Court, he found--as he has told you--only a tea-shop, and the tea was bad.

But if ever you go to Chorlton-under-Bradbury, go to the churchyard and hunt up the graves of old Mrs. Picture and Granny Marrowbone.

WILLIAM DE MORGAN'S NOVELS

"WHY ALL THIS POPULARITY?" asks E. V. LUCAS, writing in the _Outlook_ of De Morgan's Novels. He answers: De Morgan is "almost the perfect example of the humorist; certainly the completest since Lamb.... Humor, however, is not all.... In the De Morgan world it is hard to find an unattractive figure.... The charm of the young women, all brave and humorous and gay, and all trailing clouds of glory from the fairyland from which they have just come."

=JOSEPH VANCE=

The story of a great sacrifice and a life-long love.

"The book of the last decade; the best thing in fiction since Mr.

Meredith and Mr. Hardy; must take its place as the first great English novel that has appeared in the twentieth century."--LEWIS MELVILLE in _New York Times Sat.u.r.day Review_.

=ALICE-FOR-SHORT=

The romance of an unsuccessful man, in which the long buried past reappears in London of to-day.

"If any writer of the present era is read a half century hence, a quarter century, or even a decade, that writer is William De Morgan."--_Boston Transcript_.

=SOMEHOW GOOD=

How two brave women won their way to happiness.

"A book as sound, as sweet, as wholesome, as wise, as any in the range of fiction."--_The Nation_.

=IT NEVER CAN HAPPEN AGAIN=

A story of the great love of Blind Jim and his little daughter, and of the affairs of a successful novelist.

"De Morgan at his very best, and how much better his best is than the work of any novelist of the past thirty years."--_The Independent_.

=AN AFFAIR OF DISHONOR=

A very dramatic novel of Restoration days.

"A marvelous example of Mr. De Morgan's inexhaustible fecundity of invention.... Shines as a romance quite as much as 'Joseph Vance'

does among realistic novels."--_Chicago Record-Herald_.