“Well done, I declare!” he said, smilingly.  “But you’re going to the party?”

“Pretty soon, pa.”

He made no answer; but sat smiling at her.  The phantom watched them, silently.

“What made pa so cross and grim, to-night?  Tell Netty—­do,” she pleaded.

“Oh! because;—­everything went wrong with me, to-day.  There.”  And he looked as sulky, at that moment, as he ever did in his life.

“No, no, pa-sy; that won’t do.  I want the particulars,” continued Netty, shaking her head, smilingly.

“Particulars!  Well, then, Miss Nathalie Renton,” he began, with mock gravity, “your professional father is losing some of his oldest patients.  Everybody is in ruinous good health; and the grass is growing in the graveyards.”

“In the winter time, papa?—­smart grass!”

“Not that I want practice,” he went on, getting into soliloquy; “or patients, either.  A rich man who took to the profession simply for the love of it, can’t complain on that score.  But to have an interloping she-doctor take a family I’ve attended ten years, out of my hands, and to hear the hodge-podge gabble about physiological laws, and woman’s rights, and no taxation without representation, they learn from her,—­well, it’s too bad!”

“Is that all, pa-sy?  Seems to me I’d like to vote, too,” was Netty’s piquant rejoinder.

“Hoh!  I’ll warrant,” growled her father.  “Hope you’ll vote the Whig ticket, Netty, when you get your rights.”

“Will the Union be dissolved, then, pa-sy,—­when the Whigs are beaten?”

“Bah! you little plague,” he growled, with a laugh.  “But, then, you women don’t know anything about politics.  So, there.  As I was saying, everything went wrong with me to-day.  I’ve been speculating in railroad stock, and singed my fingers.  Then, old Tom Hollis outbid me to-day, at Leonard’s, on a rare medical work I had set my eyes upon having.  Confound him!  Then, again, two of my houses are tenantless, and there are folks in two others that won’t pay their rent, and I can’t get them out.  Out they’ll go, though, or I’ll know why.  And, to crown all—­um-m.  And I wish the Devil had him! as he will.”

“Had who, Beary-papa?”

“Him.  I’ll tell you.  The street-floor of one of my houses in Hanover Street lets for an oyster-room.  They keep a bar there, and sell liquor.  Last night they had a grand row,—­a drunken fight, and one man was stabbed, it’s thought fatally.”

“O father!” Netty’s bright eyes dilated with horror.

“Yes.  I hope he won’t die.  At any rate, there’s likely to be a stir about the matter, and my name will be called into question, then, as I’m the landlord.  And folks will make a handle of it, and there’ll be the deuce to pay, generally.”

He got back the stern, vexed frown, to his face, with the anticipation, and beat the carpet with his foot.  The ghost still watched from the angle of the room, and seemed to darken, while its features looked troubled.