“It’s a ghost, your reverence,” she replied—­“a ghost that haunts the house.”

“Very well, Mrs. Houlaghan; the fee for laying a ghost is five shillings; I will trouble you for that sum; we conjurers have no power until we get money from the party concerned, and then we can work with effect.”

The simple woman, in the agitation of the moment, handed him the amount of his demand, and then collected herself to hear the response, and the means of laying the ghost.

“Well, now,” said he, “tell me all about this ghost, Mrs. Houlaghan.  How long has it been troubling the family?”

“Why, then, ever since Frank lost the use of his sight, now goin’ upon five months.”

“When does it appear?”

“Why, generally afther twelve at night; and what makes it more strange is, that poor Mary’s more afeard o’ me than she is of the ghost.  She says it appears to her in her bedroom every night; but she knows I’m so timersome that she keeps her door always locked for fraid I’d see it, poor child.”

“Does it terrify her?”

“Not a bit; she says it does her no harm on earth, and that it’s great company for her when she can’t sleep.”

“Has Mary many sweethearts?”

“She has two:  one o’ them rather ould, but wealthy and well to do; her father and myself, wishin’ to see her well settled, are doin’ all we can to get her consent to marry him.”

“Who’s the other?”

“One Brine Oge M’Gaveran, a good-lookin’ vagabone, no doubt, but not worth a copper.”

“Is she fond of him?”

“Troth, to tell you the truth, I’m afeard she is; he has been often seen about the house in the evenin’s.”

“Well, Mrs. Houlaghan, I will tell you how to lay this ghost.”

“God bless you, sir; poor Mary, although she purtends that the ghost is good company for her, is lookin’ pale and very quare somehow.”

“Well, then, here is the receipt for laying the ghost:  Marry her as soon as you possibly can to Brine Oge M’Gaveran—­do that and the ghost will never appear again; but if you refuse to do it—­I may lay that ghost of course—­but another ghost, as like it as an egg is to an egg, will haunt your house until she is married to Brine Oge.  You have wealth yourselves, and you can make Brine and her comfortable if you wish.  She is your only child”—­("Blessed Father, think of him knowin’ this!")—­“and as you are well to do in the world, it’s both a sin and a scandal for you to urge a pretty young girl of nineteen to marry an old miserly runt of fifty.  You know now how to lay the ghost, Mrs. Houlaghan—­and that is what I can do for you; but if you do not marry her to Brine Oge, as I said, another ghost will certainly contrive to haunt you.  You may now withdraw.”

A farmer, with a very shrewd and comic expression of countenance, next made his appearance, and taking his hat off and laying it on the floor with his staff across it, took his seat, as he had been motioned to do, upon the chair which Mrs. Houlaghan had just vacated.