enough to make himself heard.

"Excuse me, Miss Halcombe," he said, "if I venture to say that you
are only encouraging the boy by asking him these questions."

"I will merely ask one more, Mr. Dempster, and then I shall be
quite satisfied. Well," she continued, turning to the boy, "and
whose ghost was it?"

"T' ghaist of Mistress Fairlie," answered Jacob in a whisper.

The effect which this extraordinary reply produced on Miss
Halcombe fully justified the anxiety which the schoolmaster had
shown to prevent her from hearing it. Her face crimsoned with
indignation--she turned upon little Jacob with an angry suddenness
which terrified him into a fresh burst of tears--opened her lips
to speak to him--then controlled herself, and addressed the master
instead of the boy.

"It is useless," she said, "to hold such a child as that
responsible for what he says. I have little doubt that the idea
has been put into his head by others. If there are people in this
village, Mr. Dempster, who have forgotten the respect and
gratitude due from every soul in it to my mother's memory, I will
find them out, and if I have any influence with Mr. Fairlie, they
shall suffer for it."

"I hope--indeed, I am sure, Miss Halcombe--that you are mistaken,"
said the schoolmaster. "The matter begins and ends with the boy's
own perversity and folly. He saw, or thought he saw, a woman in