'You don't mean to say that he believes in it, Sybil ?' 'Ask him, Lady Windermere, here he is'; and Lord Arthur came up the garden with a large bunch of yellow roses in his hand, and his two children dancing round him. 'Lord Arthur?' 'Yes, Lady Windermere.' 'You don't mean to say that you believe in cheiromancy?' 'Of course I do,' said the young man, smiling. 'But why?' 'Because I owe to it all the happiness of my life,' he murmured, throwing himself into a wicker chair. 'My dear Lord Arthur, what do you owe to it?' 'Sybil,' he answered, handing his wife the roses, and looking into her violet eyes. 'What nonsense!' cried Lady Windermere. 'I never heard such nonsense in all my life.' THE CANTERVILLE GHOST W I HEN Mr. Hiram B. Otis, the American Minister, bought Canterville Chase, every one told him he was doing a very foolish thing, as there was no doubt at all that the place was haunted. Indeed, Lord Canterville himself, who was a man of the most punctilious honour, had felt it his duty to mention the fact to Mr. Otis when they came to discuss terms. 'We have not cared to live in the place ourselves,' said Lord Canterville, since my grandaunt, the Dowager Duchess of Bolton, was frightened into a fit, from which she never really recovered, by two skeleton hands being placed on her shoulders as she was dressing for dinner, and I feel bound to tell you, Mr. Otis, that the ghost has been seen by several living members of my family, as well as by the rector of the parish, the Rev. Augustus Dampier, who is a Fellow of King's College, Cambridge. |