第29章 A GRAMMATICAL GHOST(3)

"Prudence," said her sister with a stern accent, "please try not to be a fool.You brushed the cup off with the sleeve of your dress.""Your theory wouldn't be so bad," said Miss Prudence, half laughing and half crying, "if there were any sleeves to my dress, but, as you see, there aren't," and then Miss Prudence had something as near hysterics as a healthy young woman from the West can have.

"I wouldn't think such a perfect lady as Lydia Carew," she ejaculated between her sobs, "would make herself so disagreeable!

You may talk about good-breeding all you please, but I call such intrusion exceedingly bad taste.I have a horrible idea that she likes us and means to stay with us.She left those other people because she did not approve of their habits or their grammar.It would be just our luck to please her.""Well, I like your egotism," said Miss Boggs.

However, the view Miss Prudence took of the case appeared to be the right one.Time went by and Miss Lydia Carew still remained.

When the ladies entered their drawing-room they would see the little lady-like Daguerro-type revolving itself into a blur before one of the family portraits.Or they noticed that the yellow sofa cushion, toward which she appeared to feel a peculiar antipathy, had been dropped behind the sofa upon the floor, or that one of Jane Austen's novels, which none of the family ever read, had been re-moved from the book shelves and left open upon the table.

"I cannot become reconciled to it," com-

plained Miss Boggs to Miss Prudence."I

wish we had remained in Iowa where we belong.Of course I don't believe in the thing! No sensible person would.But still I cannot become reconciled."But their liberation was to come, and in a most unexpected manner.

A relative by marriage visited them from the West.He was a friendly man and had much to say, so he talked all through dinner, and afterward followed the ladies to the draw-ing-room to finish his gossip.The gas in the room was turned very low, and as they entered Miss Prudence caught sight of Miss Carew, in company attire, sitting in upright propriety in a stiff-backed chair at the extremity of the apartment.

Miss Prudence had a sudden idea.

"We will not turn up the gas," she said, with an emphasis intended to convey private information to her sister."It will be more agreeable to sit here and talk in this soft light."Neither her brother nor the man from the West made any objection.Miss Boggs and Miss Prudence, clasping each other's hands, divided their attention between their corporeal and their incorporeal guests.Miss Boggs was confident that her sister had an idea, and was willing to await its development.As the guest from Iowa spoke, Miss Carew bent a politely attentive ear to what he said.

"Ever since Richards took sick that time,"he said briskly, "it seemed like he shed all responsibility." (The Misses Boggs saw the Daguerrotype put up her shadowy head with a movement of doubt and apprehension.)"The fact of the matter was, Richards didn't seem to scarcely get on the way he might have been expected to." (At this conscienceless split to the infinitive and misplacing of the preposition, Miss Carew arose trembling per-ceptibly.) "I saw it wasn't no use for him to count on a quick recovery --"The Misses Boggs lost the rest of the sen-tence, for at the utterance of the double nega-tive Miss Lydia Carew had flashed out, not in a blur, but with mortal haste, as when life goes out at a pistol shot!

The man from the West wondered why Miss Prudence should have cried at so pathetic a part of his story:

"Thank Goodness!"

And their brother was amazed to see Miss Boggs kiss Miss Prudence with passion and energy.

It was the end.Miss Carew returned no more.

End