want to bridal tour at all; she just wanted to go down to the little old house at Salem to spend her honeymoon in peace and quiet, with nothing to do and nobody to bother them.  Well, Eliphalet jumped at the suggestion.  It suited him down to the ground.  All of a sudden he remembered the spooks, and it knocked him all of a heap.  He had told her about the Duncan Banshee, and the idea of having an ancestral ghost in personal attendance on her husband tickled her immensely.  But he had never said anything about the ghost which haunted the little old house at Salem.  He knew she would be frightened out of her wits if the house ghost revealed itself to her, and he saw at once that it would be impossible to go to Salem on their wedding trip.  So he told her all about it, and how whenever he went to Salem the two ghosts interfered, and gave dark seances and manifested and materialized and made the place absolutely impossible.  Kitty, she listened in silence, and Eliphalet, he thought she had changed her mind.  But she hadn’t done anything of the kind.”

“Just like a man—­to think she was going to,” remarked Baby Van Rensselaer.

“She just told him she could not bear ghosts herself, but she would not marry a man who was afraid of them.”

“Just like a girl—­to be so inconsistent,” remarked Dear Jones.

Uncle Larry’s tiny cigar had long been extinct.  He lighted a new one, and continued:  “Eliphalet protested in vain.  Kitty said her mind was made up.  She was determined to pass her honeymoon in the little old house at Salem, and she was equally determined not to go there as long as there were any ghosts there.  Until he could assure her that the spectral tenants had received notice to quit, and that there was no danger of manifestations and materializing, she refused to be married at all.  She did not intend to have her honeymoon interrupted by two wrangling ghosts, and the wedding could be postponed until he had made ready the house for her.”

“She was an unreasonable young woman,” said the Duchess.

“Well, that’s what Eliphalet thought, much as he was in love with her.  And he believed he could talk her out of her determination.  But he couldn’t.  She was set.  And when a girl is set, there’s nothing to do but yield to the inevitable.  And that’s just what Eliphalet did.  He saw he would either have to give her up or to get the ghosts out; and as he loved her and did not care for the ghosts, he resolved to tackle the ghosts.  He had clear grit, Eliphalet had—­he was half Scotch and half Yankee, and neither breed turns tail in a hurry.  So he made his plans and he went down to Salem.  As he said good-by to Kitty he had an impression that she was sorry she had made him go, but she kept up bravely, and put a bold face on it, and saw him off, and went home and cried for an hour, and was perfectly miserable until he came back the next day.”

“Did he succeed in driving the ghosts away?” asked Baby Van Rensselaer, with great interest.