ed  to
address him, "quite  absurd. I must rattle my chains, and groan through
keyholes, and walk about at night, if that is  what you mean.  It is my only
reason for existing."
     "It is no reason  at all for existing, and you  know you have been
very wicked. Mrs. Umney told us, the first day we arrived here, that you had
killed your wife."
     "Well,  I  quite   admit  it,"  said  the  ghost  petulantly,
"but it was a purely family matter, and concerned no one else."
     "It  is very wrong  to  kill  any one," said Virginia, who at
times  had a  sweet  Puritan  gravity,  caught  from  some  old  New England
ancestor.
     "Oh, I hate the  cheap severity of  abstract  ethics! My wife  was
very  plain, never  had my ruffs properly starched,  and knew nothing  about
cookery. Why, there  was  a buck I had shot in  Hogley Woods,  a magnificent
pricket, and do you know how she had  it sent up to table? However, it is no
matter  now, for it is all over, and I  don't think it was very nice of  her
brothers to starve me to death, though I had killed her."
     "Starve you to death?  Oh,  Mr. Ghost, I  mean Sir Simon,  are you
hungry? I have a sandwich in my case. Would you like it?"
     "No, thank you, I never  eat anything now; but it is very  kind of
you, all  the  same, and you are much nicer that the rest  of  your  horrid,
rude, vulgar, dishonest family."
     "Stop!"  cried Virginia, stamping  her  foot, "it is you
who are rude, and horrid, and vulgar, and  as for dishonesty,  you  know you
stole  the  paints  out  of my  box to  try and furbish  up that  ridiculous
blood-stain  in the library.  First you  took  all my  reds,  including  the
vermillion,  and  I   could't  do  any  more  sunsets,  then  you  took  the
emerald-green  and the  chrome-yellow,  and finally I had  nothing left  but
indigo and  Chinese white, and  could  only  do moonlight  scenes, which are
always depressing to look at, and  not at all easy to paint. I never told on
you, though I was very  much annoyed, and it was most ridiculous,  the whole
thing; for who ever heard of emerald-green blood?"
     "Well, really," said the ghost, rather meekly, "what was
I to do? It is a very  difficult thing to  get real  blood nowadays, and, as
your brother  began it all with his  Paragon  Detergent, I certainly saw  no
reason why I should not have your paints. As  for colour,  that is  always a
matter of taste: the Cantervilles  have blue blood,  for  instance, the very
bluest in England; but  I know you Americans don't care for things  of  this
kind."
     "You know nothing about it,  and the  best thing you can do is  to
emigrate and improve your mind. My father will be only too happy to give you
a free passage, and though there is  a heavy duty on spirits of  every kind,
there will be no difficulty about the  Custom House, as the officers are all
Democrats. Once in New York, you are sure to be a great success. I know lots
of people  there who  would  give  a  hundred  thousands dollars  to have  a
grandfather, and much more than that to have a family ghost."
     "I don't think I should like America."
     "I suppose because we have no ruins and no curiosities," said
Virginia satirically.
     "No  ruins! no curiosities!"  answered  the ghost;  "you
have your navy and your manners."
     "Good evening;  I will go and  ask papa to get the twins  an extra
week's holiday."
     "Please don't  go, Miss  Virginia," he  cried; "I am  so
lonely  and so unhappy, and I really don't know what  to do. I want to go to
sleep and I cannot."
     "That's quite absurd! You have merely to go  to  bed and blow  out
the  candle. It  is very  difficult sometimes  to  keep awake, especially at
church, but there is no  difficulty at all about  sleeping. Why, even babies
know how to do that, and they are not very clever."
     "I have not slept for  three hundred  years," he said  sadly,
and Virginia's  beautifull  blue  eyes  opened in  wonder;  "for  three
hundred years I have not slept, and I am so tired."
     Virginia  grew   quite  grave,  and   her  little  lips  trembled  like
rose-leaves. She  came towards him, and kneeling down at his side, looked up
into his old withered face.
     "Poor, poor  Ghost," she murmured;  "have  you  no place
where you can sleep?"
     "Far away beyond the pinewoods," he answered, in a low dreamy
voice, "there is a little garden. There  the grass grows long and deep,
there are the great white stars of the hemlock flower, there the nightingale
sings  all night long. All night long he sings, and the  cold, crystal  moon
looks  down,  and  the   yew-tree  spreads  out  its  giant  arms  over  the
sleepers."
     Virginia's eyes grew dim with tears, and she hid her face in her hands.
     "You mean the Garden of Death," she wispered.
     "Yes, Death. Death must be so beautiful. To lie  in the soft brown
earth, with the grasses waving above one's head, and  listen  to silence. To
have no yesterday, and no to-morrow. To forget time, to  forgive life, to be
at peace. You can help me. You can open for me the portals of Death's house,
for Love is always with you, and Love is stronger than Death is."
     Virginia  trembled,  a  cold shudder ran  through her,  and  for a  few
moments there was silence. She felt as if she was in a terrible dream.
     Then the ghost spoke again, and  his voice sounded like the sighning of
the wind.
     "Have you ever read the old prophecy on the library window?"
     "Oh, often," cried  the little girl, looking up; "I know
it quite  well. It is painted in curious black letters,  and it is difficult
to read. There are only six lines:

     <CENTER><i>WHEN A GOLDEN GIRL CAN WIN
     PRAYER FROM OUT THE LIPS OF SIN,
     WHEN THE BARREN ALMOND BEARS,
     AND A LITTLE CHILD GIVES AWAY ITS TEARS,
     THEN SHALL ALL THE HOUSE BE STILL
     AND PEACE COME TO CANTERVILLE.</I> </CENTER>

     But I don't know what they mean."
     "They mean," he  said sadly, "that you must weep with me
for my sins, because I  have  no tears,  and pray with  me  for  my my soul,
because I have no faith, and then, if you have always  been sweet, and good,
and gentle, the Angel of Death  will have mercy on me. You will see fearfull
shapes in darkness, and wicked voices will wisper in your ear, but they will
not harm you, for  against  the purity of a little child the powers of  Hell
cannot prevail."
     Virginia made no answer, and the  ghost wrung his hands in wild despair
as  he  looked down  at her bowed golden head. Suddenly  she stood  up, very
pale, and with a strange light in her eyes. "I am not afraid," she
said firmly, "and I will ask the Angel to have mercy on you."
     He rose from his seat with a faint cry of joy, and taking her hand bent
over it with old-fashioned grace and  kissed it. His fingers were as cold as
ice, and his lips burned like fire, but Virginia did  not falter, as  he led
her across the dusky room. On the faded green tapestry were broidered little
huntsmen. They blew their tasselled horns and with their tiny hands waved to
her to go back. "Go back! little  Virginia," they cried,  "go
back!" But the ghost clutched her  hand  more tightly, and she shut her
eyes  against them. Horrible animals  with  lizard  tails,  and goggle eyes,
blinked  at  her from the  carven chimney-piece, and  murmured "Beware!
little  Virginia,  beware!  we may never  see you again," but the ghost
glided on more swiftly,  and Virginia  did not listen. When they reached the
end  of  the  room  he  stopped,  and  muttered  some  words she  could  not
understand. She opened her eyes, and  saw the wall slowly fading away like a
mist, and  a great black cavern  in front of her. A bitter  cold wind  swept
round  them,  and  she  felt  something  pulling at her dress.  "Quick,
quick," cried the ghost, "or it will be too late," and, in  a
moment, the wainscoting had closed behind them, and the Tapestry Chamber was
empty.


        VI

     About ten minutes later, the bell rang for  tea,  and, as Virginia  did
not  come down, Mrs. Otis sent up  one of  the  footmen to tell her. After a
little  time  he  returned  and  said that  he  could not find Miss Virginia
anywhere. As she was in the habit  of going out to  the garden every evening
to get flowers  for the  dinner-table, Mrs.  Otis was  not at all alarmed at
first, but  when six o'clock struck, and Virginia did not appear, she became
really agitated, and  sent  the boys  out to look for her, while she herself
and Mr.  Otis  searched every room in the house. At half-past  six  the boys
came back  and said that they could find no trace of their sister  anywhere.
They were  all now in the greatest state of exitement, and did not know what
to do, when Mr. Otis suddenly remembered that, some few days before,  he had
given a band of  gipsies permission to camp  in  the park. He accordingly at
once set off for  Blackfell Hollow, where he knew they were, accompanied  by
his  eldest  son  and two of the farm-servants. The little Duke of Cheshire,
who was perfectly frantic with anxiety, begged hard to be allowed to go too,
but Mr. Otis would not allow him, as he was afraid there might be a scuffle.
On arriving at the spot, however, he found that the gipsies had gone, and it
was evident that  their departure had been rather  sudden,  as the fire  was
still  burning, and some plates were lying  on the grass.  Having  sent  off
Washington  and  the  two  men  to  scour the  district,  he ran  home,  and
despatched telegrams to all the police  inspectors  in the  country, telling
them to look out  for  a little girl who  had  been kidnapped by  tramps  or
gipsies. He then ordered his horse to be brought round, and, after insisting
on his wife and  the three boys sitting down  to dinner, rode off  down  the
Ascot  road with a  groom.  He had  hardly, however, gone a couple of miles,
when  he  heard somebody  galloping after him,  and, looking round, saw  the
little Duke  coming up on his pony,  with his  face very flushed and no hat.
"I'm  awfully  sorry,  Mr. Otis," gasped  out the boy, "but I
can't eat  any  dinner as long as Virginia  is lost. Please, don't  be angry
with me; if you had let us be engaged last year, there would never have been
all this  trouble. You won't send me  back, will  you? I  can't  go! I won't
go!"
     The Minister  could not help  smiling at the handsome young scapegrace,
and  was a  good deal touched at his  devotion to Virginia, so leaning  down
from his horse, he patted him kindly on the shoulders, and said, "Well,
Cecil, if you won't go back I suppose  you must come with me, but I must get
you a hat at Ascot."
     "Oh, bother my hat! I want Virginia!" cried the  little Duke,
laughing,  and  they galloped  on to  the  railway  station. There Mr.  Otis
inquired  of  the station-master if any  one answering to the description of
Virginia had  been seen on the platform, but could get  no news  of her. The
station-master, however, wired up and down the line, and assured him that  a
strict watch  would be kept for her, and, after having bought a hat for  the
little  Duke from a linen-draper,  who was just putting up his shutters, Mr.
Otis rode off  to Bexley, a village about four miles away, which he was told
was a  well-known haunt of the gipsies, as there was a large  common next to
it. Here they  roused up  the rural policeman, but could get no  information
from him,  and, after riding all over the  common, they turned their horses'
heads homewards, and reached the Chase about eleven o'clock,  dead-tired and
almost heartbroken. They found  Washington and the twins waiting for them at
the gate-house with lanterns, as the avenue was very dark. Not the slightest
trace  of  Virginia  had been discovered. The  gipsies had  been  caught  on
Brockerly meadows, but she was not  with them, and they had  explained their
sudden departure by  saying that they had mistaken the date of Chorton Fair,
and had gone off  in a  hurry for fear they  might be late. Indeed, they had
been quite distressed at  hearing of Virginia's disappearance,  as they were
very grateful to Mr. Otis for  having allowed them to camp in  his park, and
four of their number had stayed behind  to help in the search. The carp-pond
had been dragged, and the whole Chase thoroughly gone over,  but without any
result.  It was evident that,  for that night at any rate, Virginia was lost
to them; and it was in a state of the deepest depression  that Mr. Otis  and
the boys  walked up to  the house, the groom following  behind with  the two
horses  and the pony. In the hall they found a group of frightened servants,
and lying  on a sofa  in the  library was poor Mrs. Otis,  almost out of her
mind  with  terror  and  anxiety,   and  having  her  forehead  bathed  with
eau-de-cologne by  the old  housekeeper.  Mr.  Otis at  once insisted on her
having something to eat, and ordered up a supper for the whole party. It was
a melancholy  meal,  as  hardly  any  one  spoke,  and  even  the twins were
awestruck and subdued, as they were very  found of their  sister. When  they
had  finished, Mr.  Otis,  in spite  of the  entreaties of  the little Duke,
ordered them all to bed, saying that nothing more could be  done that night,
and  that he  would  telegraph  in  the morning to Scotland  Yard  for  some
detectives to be sent down immediately. Just as they were passing out of the
dining-room, midnight began  to boom from the clock tower, and when the last
stroke sounded they heard  a crash  and a sudden shrill cry; a dreadful peal
of thunder  shook the house, a strain of unearthly music floated through the
air, a  panel  at the top  of the staircase flew back with a loud noise, and
out on the landing, looking very pale and white, with a little casket in her
hand, stepped Virginia. In a moment they had all rushed up to her. Mrs. Otis
clasped  her  passionately in her arms, the Duke smothered her  with violent
kisses, and the twins executed a wild war-dance round the group.
     "Good  heavens!  child, where have you been?" said  Mr. Otis,
rather angrily,  thinking  that she  had been playing some foolish trick  on
them. "Cecil  and I  have been riding all over  the country looking for
you, and your mother has been frightened to death. You must never play these
practical jokes any more."
     "Except on  the ghost!  except on  the  ghost!"  shrieked the
twins, as they capered about.
     "My own darling, thank  God you are found; you must never leave my
side again," murmured Mrs. Otis, as she kissed the trembling child, and
smoothed the tangled gold of her hair.
     "Papa,"  said  Virginia  quietly, "I have  been with the
ghost.  He is  dead, and you must come and see him. He had been very wicked,
but he was really sorry for all that he had done, and he gave me this box of
beautiful jewels before he died."
     The whole  family gazed  at her  in mute amazement, but  she was  quite
grave  and  serious; and, turning round, she led them through the opening in
the wainscoting  down a narrow secret  corridor, Washington following with a
lighted candle, which he had caught up from the table. Finally, they came to
a great oak door,  studded  with rusty  nails. When Virginia touched it,  it
swung  back on its heavy hinges, and they found themselves  in a little  low
room, with a  vaulted  ceiling, and one tiny grated window.  Imbedded in the
wall was a huge iron ring, and chained to it  was a gaunt skeleton, that was
stretched out at full length on the stone floor, and seemed to be  trying to
grasp  with its long fleshless fingers an old-fashioned  trencher and  ewer,
that were placed just out  of its  reach.  The jug  had evidently  been once
filled  with  water,  as it was  covered inside  with green mould. There was
nothing on the trencher  but a pile of dust. Virginia knelt down beside  the
skeleton,  and, folding her little hands  together,  began to pray silently,
while  the rest of the party looked  on  in  wonder  at the terrible tragedy
whose secret was now disclosed to them.
     "Hallo!"  suddenly exclaimed one  of the twins, who  had been
looking out of the window to try  and discover in what wing of the house the
room was situated. "Hallo! the old withered almond-tree has  blossomed.
I can see the flowers quite plainly in the moonlight."
     "God has forgiven him," said Virginia gravely, as she rose to
her feet, and a beautifull light seemed to illumine her face.
     "What an angel you are!" cried the young Duke, and he put his
arm round her neck, and kissed her.


        VII

     Four  days  after  these  curious  incidents  a  funeral  started  from
Canterville  Chase at about eleven o'clock at night. The hearse was drawn by
eight  black  horses, each of which carried on  its head  a  great  tuft  of
nodding  ostrich-plumes, and the  leaden coffin was covered by a rich purple
pall, on  which was embroidered in gold the Canterville coat-of-arms. By the
side of the hearse and the coaches walked the servants with lighted torches,
and  the  whole procession was wonderfully impressive. Lord  Canterville was
the  chief  mourner,  having  come up specially  from  Wales to  attend  the
funeral, and sat in the first carriage along with little Virginia. Then came
the United States Minister and his wife, then Washington and the three boys,
and in the last carriage was Mrs. Umney. It was generally felt  that, as she
had been frightened by the  ghost for more than fifty years of her life, she
had a right to see the last  of him. A deep grave had been dug in the corner
of the  churchyard,  just under the  corner of the yew-tree, and the service
was read in the most  impressive manner by the Rev.  Augustus  Dampier. When
the ceremony was over, the servants, according to an old custom observed the
Canterville family, extinguished their torches, and, as the coffin was being
lowered into the  grave, Virginia stepped forward,  and laid on  it  a large
cross made of white and  pink almond-blossoms. As she did so, the  moon came
out from  behind a cloud,  and flooded  with its  silent silver  the  little
churchyard,  and  from  a distant  copse a  nightingale  began to sing.  She
thought of the ghost's description of the Garden  of Death, her eyes  became
dim with tears, and she hardly spoke a word during the drive home.
     The next morning, before Lord Canterville went up to town, Mr. Otis had
an interview  with him  on the  subject of the jewels the ghost had given to
Virginia.  They  were  perfectly  magnificent,  especially  a  certain  ruby
necklace  with old  Venetian setting, which was  really a superb specimen of
sixteenth-century  work, and their value was so great  that  Mr.  Otis  felt
considerable scruples about allowing his daughter to accept them.
     "My  Lord,"  he  said,  "I  know  that in  this  country
mortmain is held to apply to trinkets  as well as to land,  and it  is quite
clear to me that these jewels are, or should be, heirlooms in your family. I
must beg you,  accordingly, to take them to London with you,  and  to regard
them  simply as  a portion of your property which has been  restored  to you
under certain strange conditions. As for my daughter, she is merely a child,
and has as yet, I am glad to say, but little interest in such  appurtenances
of idle luxury. I am also informed by Mrs. Otis,  who, I may say, is no mean
authority upon  Art - having had the priviledge of  spending several winters
in Boston when she was a girl - that these gems are of great monetary worth,
and if offered for sale would fetch a tall price. Under these circumstances,
Lord Canterville,  I  feel sure  that  you will recognise  how impossible it
would be  for  me to allow them to remain in the possession of any member of
my family; and,  indeed,  all such  vain gauds and  toys, however suitableor
necessary to the dignity of the British aristocracy, would be completely out
of place among those who  have been brought up  on the severe, and I believe
immortal, principles of Republican simplicity. Perchaps I shoud mention that
Virginia is very anxious that  you should allow  her to retain the box, as a
memento of your unfortunate but  misguided ancestor. As it is extremely old,
and consequently a good deal out of repair,  you may perchaps  think fit  to
comply  with  her  request.  For my  own part, I  confess I am  a  good deal
surprised to find a child  of mine expressing  sympathy with mediaevalism in
any form, and can only account for it by the fact that  Virginia was born in
one of your London suburbs  shortly after Mrs. Otis had returned from a trip
to Athens."
     Lord Canterville listened very gravely to the worthy Minister's speech,
pulling his grey  moustache now and then to hide  an involuntary  smile, and
when Mr.  Otis  had ended,  he  shook him cordially by  the hand, and  said,
"My  dear  sir,  your  charming  little daughter  rendered  my  unlucky
ancestor, Sir Simon, a  very important service, and I and my family are much
indebted to her for her marvellous courage and pluck. The jewels are clearly
hers, and, egad, I believe that if I were heatless  enough to take them from
her, the wicked old fellow would be out of his grave in a fortnight, leading
me the devil of a life. As for their being heirlooms, nothing is an heirloom
that is not so  mentioned in  a will or legal document, and the existence of
these jewels has been quite unknown. I  assure  you I  have no more claim on
them than your buttler, and when  Miss Virginia grows up I  daresay she will
be  pleased to  have pretty things to wear.  Besides, you  forget, Mr. Otis,
that you took the furniture and the ghost at a  valuation, and anything that
belonged to the ghost passed  at once into  your  possession,  as,  whatever
activity Sir Simon may have shown in the corridor at night, in point  of law
he was really dead, and you acquired his property by purchase."
     Mr. Otis was a good deal disressed at  Lord Canterville's refusal,  and
begged him to reconsider his  decision, but the good-natured peer was  quite
firm, and finally induced the Minister to  allow his daughter to retain  the
present the ghost had given her, and when, in the spring of 1890,  the young
Duchess of Cheshire  was presented at the Queen's first drawing-room on  the
occasion of her marriage, her jewels were the universal theme of admiration.
For Virginia received  the coronet, which is the  reward of all  good little
American  girls, and was married to her boy-lover as he came  of  age.  They
were both so charming, and they loved each other so much, that every one was
delighted at the match,  except  the  old Marchioness of Dumbleton, who  had
tried  to catch  the Duke for one of her seven unmarried  daughters, and had
given no  less  than three expensive dinner-parties  for  that purpose, and,
strange to say, Mr. Otis himself. Mr.  Otis was  extremely fond of the young
Duke personally, but, theoretically, he objected to titles,  and, to use his
own words,  "was not  without  apprehension  lest, amid  the enervating
influences  of  a  pleasure-loving  aristocracy,   the  true  principles  of
Republican  simplicity should  be  forgotten." His objections, however,
were completely overruled, and I believe that when he walked up the aisle of
St. George's, Hanover Square, with  his daughter leaning  on his arm,  there
was not a prouder man in the whole length and breadth of England.
     The Duke  and the Duchess, after the honeymoon was over,  went down  to
Canterville Chase, and on the  day  after their arrival  they walked over in
the afternoon to the lonely churchyard by the pine-woods.  There had been  a
great deal  of difficulty at first  about  the  inscription on  Sir  Simon's
tomb-stone, but  finally it had been  decided to  engrave on it  simply  the
initials of the old gentleman's name, and the verse from the library window.
The Duchess had brought with her  some lovely  roses, which she strewed upon
the grave, and after they had stood by it  for some time they  strolled into
the ruined chancel of the old abbey. There the Duchess  sat down on a fallen
pillar, while her husband lay at her feet smoking a cigarette and looking up
at her beautiful eyes. Suddenly he threw his  cigarette  away,  took hold of
her hand,  and said to her, "Virginia,  a wife should have no  sectrets
from her husband."
     "Dear Cecil! I have no secrets from you."
     "Yes, you  have,"  he answered, smiling, "you have never
told me what happened to you when you were locked up with the ghost."
     "I have never told any one, Cecil," said Virginia gravely.
     "I know that, but you might tell me."
     "Please  don't ask me, Cecil, I cannot tell you. Poor Sir Simon! I
owe him a great deal. Yes,  don't laugh, Cecil, I really  do. He made me see
what  Life  is,  and what Death  signifies, and why  Love  is stronger  than
both."
     The Duke  rose  and  kisse his wife lovingly.  "You can have  your
secret as long as I have your heart," he murmured.
     "You have always had that, Cecil."
     "And you will tell our children some day, won't you?"
     Virginia blushed.