"Upon my word, Mr. Dempster, you pay my feelings a great
compliment in thinking them weak enough to be shocked by such an
urchin as that!" She turned with an air of satirical defiance to
little Jacob, and began to question him directly. "Come!" she
said, "I mean to know all about this. You naughty boy, when did
you see the ghost?"

"Yestere'en, at the gloaming," replied Jacob.

"Oh! you saw it yesterday evening, in the twilight? And what was
it like?"

"Arl in white--as a ghaist should be," answered the ghost-seer,
with a confidence beyond his years.

"And where was it?"

"Away yander, in t' kirkyard--where a ghaist ought to be."

"As a 'ghaist' should be--where a 'ghaist' ought to be--why, you
little fool, you talk as if the manners and customs of ghosts had
been familiar to you from your infancy! You have got your story at
your fingers' ends, at any rate. I suppose I shall hear next that
you can actually tell me whose ghost it was?"

"Eh! but I just can," replied Jacob, nodding his head with an air
of gloomy triumph.

Mr. Dempster had already tried several times to speak while Miss
Halcombe was examining his pupil, and he now interposed resolutely